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Sonny Bono
Biography
Sonny Bono ranked as one of pop-rock's most visible and famous musician/producers of the mid- to late '60s; and in the '70s, he was one of the very few successful musical-variety personalities on American television. His work and career straddled the eras of Brill Building pop, the British Invasion, and folk-rock, right through to 1970s pop. His talent and keen sense of where popular culture was heading sent him and his partner and wife Cher into the birth of the counterculture and through to a post-rock career in Las Vegas and onto television. And, in a final, ironic act of reinvention, Sonny Bono became one of the symbols of the 1994 republican revolution in Congress and an exponent of right wing politics.

Salvatore Bono was born to an impoverished family of Sicilian immigrants in Detroit. Sonny Bono, as he came to be known, was a poor student and left high school well before graduating in order to earn a living. He survived by waiting tables, working in construction and as a butcher's assistant, and driving a truck, and he eventually moved west to Los Angeles. He also began writing songs in his spare time, as he sought a way into the entertainment industry. His entrée came through Art Rupe's Specialty Records, where he was hired in the late '50s by the promotion department, and where he worked with Little Richard, Larry Williams, Don & Dewey, and, briefly, Sam Cooke, among others.
Selected Discography