Black Rose

Cher and Black Rose: A Hard Rock Experiment

Cher has always had a varied and unpredictable career. But when she was part of a band called Black Rose, it seemed she was ready to make her mark in the hard rock world.

You have to put things into perspective, because at the time the singer had only just resurrected her career, after it faltered for a few years in the late '70s. In 1979, after signing to Casablanca Records, she had a top ten hit in America with the disco single "Take Me Home." And she followed this up with another dance track, "Hell On Wheels," which had a video that is regarded as pioneering, almost seeming to be a blueprint for what would soon follow when MTV was launched.

And then in 1980, as the disco craze was on the wane, she teamed up with guitarist Les Dudek in a new band called Black Rose. Now Dudek was highly regarded at the time. He had worked with the Allman Brothers, being one of the featured guitarists on their Brothers & Sisters album in 1973; his work on the songs "Ramblin' Man" and "Jessica" was especially noteworthy. He was subsequently involved with both Boz Scaggs and the Steve Miller Band, as well as recording three highly praised solo albums.

Les Dudek's Perspective

"Yeah well, as it turns out, that was my second big mistake," Dudek admitted to journalist Everett Phile in 2010. "I think at that point my record company [Columbia] was throwing darts at my pictures. Even though I have no regrets whatsoever about being with Cher, in fact I have nothing but fond memories of her, it was a bad mistake for my music career. I was still licking my wounds from the DFK fiasco [earlier in 1980, Dudek released an album titled DFK, with keyboard player Mike Finnigan and guitarist Jim Krueger] when I was approached by Cher to do an album project with her. Black Rose was the name of that monster. I figured what can it hurt, I wasn't doing anything, and artists play on other artists' records all the time, what's the big deal, so I agreed to help her."

Dudek also talked to Swampland in 2001 about how he got involved with this band. "I was in the Rainbow Bar & Grill on Sunset Boulevard in LA, and one of my player buddies said, 'Hey, did you hear Cher's auditioning some players for a new project?' I went down there and ended up running into Mike Finnigan [keyboardist on Black Rose and a former guest on Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland] and Steve Stills. They had come down for the audition, too. We got in there playing and turned it into a big jam session and Cher stopped it. She said, 'Hey! I didn't invite all you people down here for a jam session. This is for my project, dammit!'"

"She invited us all to dinner afterwards at Nick's Fish Market on Sunset Boulevard. After dinner she came up to me and asked, 'Are you serious about trying to help me do some stuff with my music?' I wasn't doing anything at the time; I'd just come off of a big tour with DFK [The Dudek, Finnigan, Krueger Band] and Kansas. I was in between things. I said, 'Hell yeah, I'll help you do it!'"

It was Dudek who put Cher on track, and got in the right producer to oversee the project, as he explained in 2001. "She came over to my house and we were kicking around some tunes. She had one guy producing one thing, and another guy producing another. I told her, I said, 'Look, man, let's get one producer for this thing.' She said, 'Well, I don't really know anybody right now that I'm happy with.' I said, 'Look, I just did an album with this guy James Newton Howard. He played keyboards with Elton John and has written endless scores for movies.' So, we ended up bringing him in."

The Band and the Album

The line-up of musicians put together was very impressive. Gary Ferguson was on drums (later to join Gary Moore's band, Channel and Hughes/Thrall), Ron "Rocket" Ritchotte on guitar (another seasoned session player), Trey Thompson on bass (also a future member of Channel), Warren Ham on backing vocals (from Bloodrock and later a member of a former Kansas guitarist's band AD), as well as Dudek and Cher.

Determined to prove this was not a vanity project, but a serious band, Black Rose went out on the road to sell tickets and get interest. The band recorded this album for Casablanca at both Sunset Sound and Westlake Audio studios in Hollywood, and apart from those musicians mentioned earlier, there were also contributions from Toto's David Paich and Steve Porcaro among others, while David Foster, Bernie Taupin, Mike Chapman and Carole Bayer Sager all contributed songs. With such a vast array of talent involved, there was no doubt that what would come out definitely should have had the hallmark of class running right through the vinyl veins. But things did not go according to plan when this self-titled album was released in August 1980.

Cher was committed to ensuring this was seen as a proper band. So, the name on the cover was that of Black Rose, with no mention of the high profile vocalist at all. Her photo does appear on the sleeve, but it is on the back of it, and even then this was with the rest of the line-up, not on her own. A subsequent reissue did alter this, by having the star's image prominently on the front of the cover. But that did not meet with universal approval. This Rock Candy reissue features the original artwork.

"I was always unhappy with this change in artwork," says Dudek now. "I was never happy with the switch from the original cover for some of the reissues."

Record Label Troubles

The fact the album came out through Casablanca caused serious problems for Dudek, as he outlined in 2010. "Well boy, I caught total hell from my label Columbia over that one. She was with a different record company than me, and my record company was pissed. Most likely, that Black Rose project sealed my fate with my record company."

"We did the album and went out and did The Merv Griffin Show, The Midnight Special, Tom Snyder'" remembered Dudek in 2001. "We did a little stretch of dates with Hall & Oates. Played at Central Park, and stuff like that. And Neil Bogart, who was president of that label, Casablanca—he had Donna Summer, KISS and Cher—he was a sweetheart of a guy, but he had a heart attack and died [it was actually from cancer]. So, that put that one on hold. It all kind of folded up. Cher was really intent on becoming a rock 'n' roll singer again. She was really keeping her name in the background and promoting Black Rose. It could have worked, but it fizzled because the record company fizzled."

The problem was that Casablanca had a reputation for lavish spending, and while this worked well for them in terms of profile and marketing for artists like KISS, The Village People and Donna Summer in the '70s, by the dawn of the next decade, Polygram owned 50 percent of the company. They were less than ecstatic about Bogart's tactics for enormous spending, and eventually bought him out of the company completely. His health issues led to the complete takeover of the company, and Black Rose certainly suffered as a result. In the end, it led to poor sales for the album, which only shifted about 400,000 copies globally. A poor return when you consider what Cher had been producing commercially in the past.

Cher's Career Pivot

"Cher got real depressed for a while there, trying to decide what to do," admitted Dudek in 2010. "And I said, 'Your natural progression is staring you right in the face.' She said, 'What's that?' I said, 'You should be a movie star. You've already done the music thing and you can always fall back on that. You've had your two TV shows, one with Sonny and one by yourself.' I said, 'Go for an Oscar. Go for the gold.' So, we got on a plane and flew to New York and met with Robert Altman who was doing a play in New York called Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. She let him know that she really wanted to get into acting, so she did the play. In the interim, she was also doing some of the big Caesars Palace type of shows in Las Vegas."

The Album's Musical Style

The album was promoted by Casablanca as being in the new wave genre. But this really wasn't the case. In reality when you listen back now to what is on the album, it has more in common with the melodic hard rock that was prevalent at the time than anything that may have had a new wave function. As you might expect from the people involved, the level of musicianship was really high, and the songs were also brimming with quality. Cher is convincing as a rock vocalist, and slots in with the rest of the band really well indeed. In fact, this sounds like a proper band, not a collection of session talents brought together to fulfill the aspirations of one person.

Black Rose was the third time Cher had dabbled in the rock area. In 1977, she worked with then husband Greg Allman on the Allman and Woman album. A year later, she guested on the song "Living in Sin" featured on the self-titled, debut solo record from KISS' Gene Simmons. But Black Rose was the first album to really suggest that she could actually make an impact on the rock sphere. In fact, while this was a commercial disappointment, there's much to admire here, with songs like "Young and Pretty" and "88 Degrees" being convincing representations of what the band could achieve. And when you remember the musical direction Cher took as the '80s unfurled, then this album was certainly a prototype for what came next.

Moreover, when the band performed live on The Midnight Special they not only did their recorded songs "Never Should've Started," "Julie" and "You Know It," but also covered Frankie Miller's "Ain't Got No Money," which they also did on tour.

What Might Have Been

There was talk about a proposed second album from Black Rose, with both "Ain't Got No Money" and "Dirty Old Man" being considered for inclusion. Like the former, the latter track was also part of the band's live set. Interestingly, "Don't Trust That Woman," which was co-written by Cher and Dudek for the initial album was subsequently recorded by Dudek for his 1981 solo album Gypsy Ride.

"It really was a good band," Dudek felt in 2001. "But nobody cared after Neil Bogart died. He was the president of Cher's record label. So when he passed, that was the end of that. She literally moved in with me for three years. I totally lost my identity. Had a great time. But lost everything as a result. My musical credibility got shot all to hell. I did manage to squeeze out one more record with Columbia Records at that time, Gypsy Ride, it came out and took top picks in all the trades, Cash Box, Record World and Billboard marked it for huge success. But by then my record company had lost interest and didn't care anymore so they just let it die. That was a real shame, because there were some hits on that record."

"Cher even co-wrote a tune with me, which is kind of eerie now when I think of it, called, 'Don't Trust That Woman.' Yeah freaky ain't it? But ya know, it's a damn good tune. Elton John even did a different version of it on his Leather Jackets album (1986). After we broke up, she was kind enough to try and get me involved in a movie project, so that was very nice of her and I really needed the work at the time."

"The movie was Mask, I was a biker. Boy, that was a stretch wasn't it? Oh well, it was a great experience to be in an Oscar winning major motion picture, and I'm very thankful for that. So let it be known to all you piles of record companies that have fallen along the wayside since 1984, I did an album and a movie with Cher and I'm proud of it, so there!"

Cher's Reflections

Cher herself had nothing but positive recollections of Les, when talking in the early 1980s. "Les is the person I had more fun with than any person I ever knew. He has a wonderful sense of humor. He's really carefree and not very materialistic at all. We just had a good time doing nothing—riding motorcycles and doing nothing."

The singer also believed she was setting the musical tone for the period. "We were the forerunners of a certain kind of music that's happening today, and a certain kind of attitude and dress, and shit like that. But the image of me in beaded gowns on the cover of the National Enquirer was very heavy to fight. People forget that there weren't bell-bottom jeans before I started wearing them."

And a final word on Cher from Dudek perhaps sums her up best. "She has a great work ethic. She's real dedicated to what she does."