All I Really Want to Do

by Tim Sendra After Sonny & Cher hit big with "I Got You Babe," Sonny Bono decided that he would strike while they were hot and got Cher a solo deal with Liberty Records. The angle they took for the 1965 album All I Really Want to Do was folk-rock with a tiny bit of girl group pop thrown in. Choosing from the songbooks of writers like Dylan (the title track, "Don't Think Twice," "Blowin' in the Wind"), Pete Seeger ("The Bells of Rhymney"), Jackie DeShannon ("Come and Stay With Me"), as well as Bono himself (the Jack Nitzsche co-write "Needles and Pins," the girl group classic "Dream Baby") and using his Spector-derived production skills to create rich, chiming backgrounds for Cher to sing over, the duo made what turns out to be one of the stronger folk-pop records of the era. Cher isn't the most subtle singer, but she sounds young and full of life on these tracks, like she really believes in what she is singing (a feeling you don't always get on her more lightweight material). No one will mistake her for Joni Mitchell or Sandy Denny, but you shouldn't belittle her efforts as a folksinger, either; All I Really Want to Do is proof that she was for real.