While still talking about the 1970s, Cher confirmed an often-repeated industry story concerning Vicki Lawrence’s blockbuster #1 hit “The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia”. It had been originally written for her, but Sonny Bono turned it down. “I don’t know how Son let me (turn that track down)…I would have done it if he had wanted me to…if he’d have liked it. Obviously, he didn’t like it.” We then asked how much control Sonny had over her early 1970s recordings and we were surprised to learn that he was barely involved at all. By the time The Sonny & Cher Show took off, he had turned over the recording controls almost entirely to producer Snuff Garrett. Cher explained that the tight schedule she was on at the time made Garrett’s efficient style practical, and essential. “I could do a whole album with Snuffy in three days. I’d sing each song through two or three times and, if you got it, it was on to the next one. You have to (understand) what it was like. We were on the road, I was recording, and we were doing the Sonny & Cher Show, all at the same time! I was fried! I did the best that I could (fitting) each obligation into what little time was alotted.”
Many in the industry, ourselves included, had assumed through the years that Cher didn’t particularly care for her biggest hit of the late 1970s, “Take Me Home”. Not true, she told us. She’s as proud of that album as she is of any of the others, but says that making it proved difficult. “I was kind of cranky at the time because (producer) Bob Esty was just such a d—k. I mean, he’s a cool guy now, and he was a nice guy before that, but at the time he was just a miserable s—t. And I really didn’t want to work with him”. Cher attributes Esty’s personal turmoil during that period to a substance abuse problem that has since been resolved. “He’s stopped though, and he’s a real cool guy now.”