LPCDreissues: Looking forward to the past

Four years before their hippie trappings were co-opted and sanitized by Madison Ave. and the Partridge Family, Sonny & Cher were the stuff of rebellion: real teen rebellion against uptight teachers, twistin' grandmas, hopelessly Donna Reed parents, the entire gamut of squares. Theirs was a quantum leap in the history of teen insolence, overnight transforming a hitherto dark, greasy, James-Dean-dangerous rebellion into a long-haired, bell-bottom, bobcat-vest luv-fest rebellion, with its own musical accompaniment. Sonny & Cher were postwar-America's first rebels without switchblades. Their near-cuddly outrageousness was irresistible. In an era of smashed traditions and questioned authority, Sonny & Cher showed their anti-establishment audience how two people could be married, even married and singing silly love songs to one another, and still be the epitome of cool.