July 19, 2000        
                                                                                                                        Updated at 12:30 a.m.
Reprint of THE ASSOCIATED PRESS article by Bennie Currie.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

                               All site contents copyright © 2000 News World Communications, Inc.

   


101 South River Street, Aurora, Illinois 60506

07/11/00

A 'CherFest' is coming to Chicago

Wild, wild Web unite's diva's fans

   If you believe the television commercials, the World Wide Web is about making connections, about bringing people together from anywhere and everywhere.
   Next week, it will bring to Chicago a housewife from Valparaiso, Ind., a man from Australia, a woman from Wonder Lake and the owner of a vintage-vinal record store in Carpentersville in single-minded purpose to celebrate a celebrity with a single name:
   Cher.
   That's right, on July 14-15 at the Congress Hotel in Chicago, thousands of Moonstruck fans will come together to trade stories, spin records and purchase memorabilia at a first-ever event called Cher Convention 2000.

'The coolest voice'
Snared in the Web that created this Cher fest is one unlikely fly: Bob Sluyter, owner of Shooting Stars Records and Collectibles along Main Street in old Carpentersville.
   Sluyter has been helping a frequent customer track down old, unwrapped vinyl featuring the music of Cher — recorded both with and without her first and best-known husband, Sonny Bono. Sluyter scrounged the Chicago area and found seven albums, two at a store in an African-American neighborhood on Chicago's South Side.
   Sluyter is doing the chasing for Diana Fields, 42, who lives in Wonder Lake, works in Schaumburg and likes Cher enough to donate five of these albums to the people running Cher Convention 2000.
   While growing up in Oklahoma, Fields would watch Cher on television and even had a poster of the singer dressed as the main character from her song Dark Lady.
   Cher "has the coolest voice and really pours her heart into it," Fields said.
   Her taste in music, she added, is varied — "from Led Zeppelin to light jazz" — but Sonny Bono's death a few years ago rejuvenated her interest in Cher.
   Using the Internet, she came upon the cher.com Web site, where she learned about plans for the Cher convention. She left a note on a message board there and heard back from Judy Didelot, one of the Cher Convention 2000's planners.
   With that, Fields became a volunteer, finding items to auction off at the convention and putting up convention posters at places such as Shooting Stars in Carpentersville.
   Didelot said the impetus behind the event was twofold: fan unity and fan appreciation.
   "I thought it was time fans got together and had a party," she said. "If it weren't for fans, celebrities wouldn't have their parties."
   The www.cherconvention.com Web site puts the reasons for the first-of-its-kind convention in more dramatic terms. According to the site, with the use of the Internet, people have found their "Cher family."
   "We know we are not alone when we ask ourselves, 'How can we give back the happiness she has given us for so many years?' " posits the Web site. "But what can we give a woman who has everything she could want? A woman who has heard, 'I love you, Cher,' a million times? As organizers of the Cher convention, we have come up with a unique way to say, 'Thank you, Cher.' "

Fans 'Believe'
Didelot, 48, said she's never done anything like organizing a convention before. She's been a fan since she took her young sister to her first concert, a Cher show in 1972.
   "I love her music, her movies and her honesty. I like the fact that, de-spite what life gives her, she doesn't give up," Didelot said.
   Being a fan of the Academy Award-winning, fiftysomething di-va is why she got onto the Internet in the fall of 1998, Didelot said. Once online, the Valparaiso housewife quickly found the cher.com site.
   Fans in a chat room there were discussing Cher's most recent recording, the dance pop anthem Believe, and the album of the same name. According to Didelot, the virtual pals banded together to help take the song to the top of the Billboard charts, where it would stay for four weeks — the longest of any Cher song.
   Didelot said fans pushed each other to request Believe from their local radio stations, sent e-mails to cable music channels VH1 and MTV requesting the video, and wrote to Cher's record label asking to release the song as a single.
   Flushed with their success, the fans decided to plan a Cher conven-tion.
   "We owe it all to Believe," Didelot said.
   In 1998, Didelot got to meet her idol. Cher was present for the grand opening of the Tower Records on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, and Didelot got her to sign a promotional vinyl copy of Believe. It's her most prized Cher possession, along with a signed color photo of Cher sent in response to a fan letter in 1992.
   Fields admitted she was "kind of surprised there will be a Cher convention," and even more surprised that a male fan from Australia plans to attend.
   Shooting Stars Records owner Sluyter, however, was nonplused by the thought of a Cher event. After all, he knew of conventions for 1980s teen heartthrobs in the band Duran Duran and a convention held in Los Angeles for the campy, late 1960s soap opera Dark Shadows.
   In the Internet age, "There's a niche for everything, I suppose. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a Flock of Seagulls convention some-day," he quipped, referring to the big-haired New Wave band of the early 1980s. On the Net
www.cher.com
www.cherconvention.com

101 South River Street, Aurora, Illinois 60506

07/12/00

   They'll be coming from all over to attend Cher Convention 2000, hundreds of them, according to Judy Didelot, an organizer.
   Crowds are expected for the convention — which will be held Friday and Saturday at the Congress Plaza Hotel in Chicago — because Cher appeals to all people of all ages, Didelot said.
   Didelot said 500 people already have committed to attending the two-day event, including fans from Europe and Australia.
   The public is invited to the afternoon of the second day for a $12 admission charge — $10 for those wearing Cher T-shirts. Organizers have dubbed the Windy City "Cher-cago" for the weekend.
   Money from the event will go to the Children's Cranial Facial Association, a group helping youth suffering from the same disease that inflicted the character in Cher's film Mask. According to Didelot, the charity is Cher's favorite, and she holds annual summer retreats to benefit it.
   The convention will feature Cher bingo, Cher trivia, a "Name that Cher Tune" game, a Cher museum, an auction of Cher items, and seminars on her films and music.
   Fans can meet a man who touched the hem of Cher's garments, Wayne Smith. Smith worked with fashion designer Bob Mackie, who made most of the fabulous, outrageous wardrobe Cher wore on her '70s television show. During the early 1980s, Smith shopped for material for Cher's outfits.
   Nor would it be a Cherfest without a gaggle of the best in Cher impersonators imitating their favorite diva.
   Although there's no telling whether she will attend, Cher has been invited to the convention through her personal secretary, Didelot said.

149 State Street, BELOIT, WISCONSIN, (608)365-8811

Reprint of THE ASSOCIATED PRESS article by Bennie Currie.

Copyright & copy 2000 The Greater Beloit Publishing Company

July 19, 2000

CHERSTRUCK
Fans Worship in Chicago
by Lisa Neff

  Thirty-five years ago, Helen Thomas gave birth to her first daughter. She named her Cherilyn Sarkisian Thomas. She named her daughter after Cher. "She's been an inspiration to me for all those years," Thomas says of the celebrity. "It's not just her talent, which is so great it's beyond description. It's her whole existence."
  Thomas is one of the more than 500 Cher fans at Chicago's Congress Hotel and Convention Center for Cher Convention 2000 July 15. It is the first -- but probably not the last -- convention of it's kind in the world. The fans -- most of them straight, middle-class women -- have come from across the country to exchange memorabilia and stories of Cher encounters and concerts.
  Sally Johnson has come from St. Louis with about 1,000 of the more than 7,500 items in her Cher memorabilia collection. She became a collector in 1965, the year Sonny and Cher released their sweet jangly ode to hippie marriage, "I Got You Babe".
  "I was a singer in a band and I just loved the music," Johnson recalls. "I just think she's a phenomenal person. She can do anything. And there's so many things in my life she got me through."
  Johnson's convention display includes autographed photos, t-shirts, music videos, film videos, posters, computer games, records, magazines. Some of the items are ordinary -- old TV Guides and concert shirts -- and some are extraordinary, such as two Cher gold records autographed by the late Alabama Gov. George Wallace.
  "Over there I have her Bonnie Jo Mason record ("Ringo I Love You")", Johnson says, pointing toward Cher's earliest solo effort, recorded under the Mason pseudonym. "And I also have the Don Christie record Sonny recorded before he was Sonny Bono."
  It's not the late congressman Johnson cares about. It's Cher that Johnson worships. "She doesn't get the credit she deserves," Johnson says. "I feel like as much as she's done for everyone in four decades, it should be 'Cher, Cher, Cher' all the time!"
  Johnson has met Cher several times backstage at concerts. At the initial meeting about 15 years ago, Johnson began crying. "Cher said, 'You just dry those tears,'" Johnson recalls, her voice going deeper in an effort to mimic her idol.
  Johnson's interrupted by Dennis Stewart, of Chicago, who wants to know how much money she'll take to part with an oil-on-canvas painting circa 1989 -- Cher with big black hair. "If she was here to sign it, it'd be priceless," he says.
  Stewart shares a singular prayer with many convention-goers -- that there might be a visitation from their goddess. "Someone told me they overheard that she might fly in for tonight's dance," says Randall Kaufman, of Naperville.
  Rumor begets rumor.
  "People are saying Cher might come to pick up the proceeds," says fan Kim Swanson, adding that the money from the convention will benefit Cher's favorite charity, the Children's Craniofacial Association.
  The press catches the buzz. Journalists trade numbers with convention organizers. "Please, call me if she shows."
  There is no visitation, but there are Cher impersonators at the Congress. Several -- including Amy Hohimer, Wayne Smith and Chicago impersonator Jeffery Thomas -- opened the convention July 14 with a retro-Cher show. In the cult of Cher, impersonators are the second-best thing to the real thing.
  "They're fantastic girls," Helen Thomas says. "You close your eyes and some of them, their voices sound just like her. Cher loves them, too -- all her drag queens."
  Thomas reaches into her purse for a notebook of Cher quotes. She reads from Section D under "drag". "It's been a long time, you know? It's been 35 years of drag queens, so I'm a connoisseur." Thomas describes herself as dull, straight as an arrow. "I'm just a jeans and t-shirt gal," she says. "I don't know much about gays or this camp."
  She says Cher taught her to appreciate drag, as well as to accept gays and lesbians. "Cher met Sonny at a lesbian nightclub," Thomas says. "And then there's Chastity, Cher's daughter. She's a lesbian. Cher loves her and she's worked for gay rights."
  "Cher has just given me so much. She gives to all her fans," Thomas continues. She returns to her notebook and turns to Section F. "Here, Cher says right here, 'What I do, I do for myself and my fans -- the new ones and die-hard ones. The other people, the critics, what they say is like the poison of the business.'" Thomas reads on, deleting the expletives in Cher's criticism of critics and send-up of fans. "I think my fans have been unbelievable, because they just stuck by me when it looked like I was dead to the world and never coming back."
  Thomas giggles. She says the critics have thought Cher was "dead" several times over the past 35 years. "She just keeps proving them wrong," she boasts.
  Philip Finegan of Cleveland smugly says, "Cher's had more comebacks than plastic surgeries." Finegan gets sharp looks from a circle of fans who don't want to hear even a slight joke aimed at Cher. The fans do, however, want to hear dish about other divas of drama or pop. For trash talk, they turn to Wayne Smith, who in addition to doing a dead-on Cher impersonation, worked on Bob Mackie's costumes for the stars.
  "Barbra Streisand, is she like the major bitch everyone says she is?" a man shouts during Smith's seminar on "Cher Fashion".
  Smith stumbles over his answer. "She's very particular," he says. He schools the audience on the different standards for men and women. "People say she's a bitch because she's a woman."
  But Smith lets the nails rip on Diana Ross. "There's some people," he says, "you just want to shudder."
  The impersonator, wearing a pink pantsuit decorated in beads and a black wig teased 6-inches high, gets wide-eyed looks when he tells fans how he carried Cher's bags during a shopping spree on Rodeo Drive. Afterward, he says, Cher offered him a sip of her soda and didn't mind that he drank from her straw. "She's real that way," he says.
  Smith's celebrity status rises another notch when he recalls another encounter with Cher -- backstage at a concert in Dallas. "She offered me some of her peanut M&Ms," he says.
  "That sounds like Cher," Thomas says later. "Always giving of herself."

July 14, 2000, FRIDAY, Late Sports Final Edition

SECTION: WEEKEND PLUS; OUT & ABOUT; Pg. 52; NC   LENGTH: 220 words

      Fans of pop diva and actress Cher will gather this weekend for Chercago Cher Convention 2000 at the Congress Plaza Hotel and Convention Center.
  The convention tonight and Saturday will feature performances, games, seminars, music, a Cher Museum, movies, videos, photographs and Cher memorabilia. The convention also is an the opportunity to meet others who share the belief that "Cher is one of the greatest modern entertainers," a spokesman said.
  An opening banquet will be held at 8 tonight at the convention center. The event will feature a "Cher Impersonator Show" featuring Chicago Cher impersonator Amy Hohimer as well as other Cher performers. Admission is $75.
  Admission to the convention on Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., is $ 12 (a $ 2 discount applies for those who wear a Cher T-shirt). Another banquet begins at 8 p.m. Saturday featuring a dinner, auction and a dance to DJ music. Admission is $ 75; $ 10 for just the dance.
  A ticket to all three events is $ 150. Proceeds benefit the Children's Craniofacial Association (CCA). For many years, Cher has been the honorary chairperson of CCA, which provides support to children born with facial deformities.

The convention center is at 520 S. Michigan. For more information, call (734) 279-2141;
the Web site is www.cherconvention.com.

GRAPHIC: A "Chercago Cher Convention 2000" honors Cher today and Saturday.

Copyright 2000 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.

July 17, 2000 Monday

EVENING UPDATE EDITION, SECTION: News; Pg. 2; ZONE: C; EVENING. People., LENGTH: 202 words

CHER WORSHIPERS TREK TO CHICAGO FOR CONFAB

  More than 500 diva-worshipers came to Chicago for a two-day weekend convention in honor of Cher. Cher Convention 2000 drew Cher impersonators, wannabes and outright look-alikes from across the country Friday and Saturday.
  The gathering at Chicago's Congress Plaza Hotel, which resembled conventions for fans of Star Trek, was organized by three fans who found each other through Cher's Web site.
  "I've been a fan for years and we all thought it would be good to get together with other fans," said Kim Werdman, a real estate manager from Arlington, Texas, who served as convention vice president.
  Cher wasn't present although organizers had expected her to attend. While the event featured kitschy karaoke performances, Sonny and Cher album covers and other memorabilia, it also had a serious side.
  Proceeds from the sale of T-shirts, photographs and other keepsakes will be donated to the Children's Craniofacial Association, a Dallas-based support group, Werdman said.
  Cher is the organization's honorary chairwoman. In the 1985 film "Mask," she played the mother of a boy who was born with craniofacial deformities, and the singer has since been a benefactor for people who suffer from the disorder.

LOAD-DATE: July 18, 2000

Copyright 2000 Chicago Tribune Company

July 19, 2000 Wednesday

CHICAGO SPORTS FINAL EDITION.  SECTION: Tempo; Pg. 3; ZONE: C, LENGTH: 851 words

CHER-HOLDERS HAVE A BIG GET-TOGETHER TO WALLOW IN THEIR ADORATION

TRUE BELIEVERS by Etelka Lehoczky Special to the Tribune.

  What does it take to make a diva? She -- "diva" always equals "female," with the exception of Elton John -- must have an opera star's grandiosity and a flamboyant sense of personal style. She should be more ambitious than talented, with a history of being misunderstood, even picked on, by the media. Another necessity is a cult of ferociously devoted fans. Think Barbra Streisand and Madonna. And, if you haven't already, think Cher.
  It's hard to pinpoint exactly when Cher became a full-fledged diva, but a diva she is, beyond doubt. That was evident last weekend at the Congress Plaza Hotel, site of the first-ever (as far as the organizers can tell) Cher Convention. Several hundred fans from all over the country gathered to watch clips from Cher's movies, listen to Cher impersonators cover her songs "Believe" and "Turn Back Time," play Cher bingo, browse the Cher museum and talk about why they're so obsessed with their idol.
  "These people live, sleep, pray to Cher," said Wayne Smith, a Cher impersonator from Dallas. "If I stepped out and didn't look like what they expect, I knew they would kill me."
  Smith needed not to worry on that score. With his male form hidden beneath an elaborately beaded pantsuit and a sculptural wig augmenting his already considerable height, Smith looked uncannily like the woman he was imitating. Wherever he went at the convention he attracted a circle of onlookers, still and video cameras in hand, for whom he was the next-best thing to the diva herself.
  "I paid one of the impersonators to have my picture taken with her, and she had her arm around me, and I just -- this is the closest I am ever going to be to [Cher], you know?" said Sherry Duciaome, a fortyish fan from St. Louis decked out in a Cher T-shirt and numerous buttons that, she explained, she bought on eBay. "This whole thing has been just overwhelming. If you can see me now, I'm just shaking." As proof, she held out her hands, which were, indeed, shaking a little.
  "I even want to keep this," she added, indicating the words "Cher Convention 2000" stamped on her hand in purple ink.
  Not all of the visitors were as agitated as Duciamoe, but most seemed to agree with her that there's something almost magical about Cher. No one seemed fazed by the more worshipful items in the Cher museum, which included everything from paintings of the star to framed concert tickets. One gilt-framed rendering in oils approached four feet in height, as did the bristling copy of one of Cher's feathered headdresses.
  For those who wanted a Cher painting of their very own, a dealer offered framed watercolors with titles like "Believe," "Half Breed" and "Turn Back Time" for $300-$500. There were less expensive souvenirs too, of course, some of the most popular of which were white cotton sailor hats emblazoned with "Cher Convention 2000." Since Cher's comeback hit, "Turn Back Time," featured sailors in the video, fans have associated the hats with their idol. Now, for a mere $10 (to go, like all the convention's profits, to charity), they can sport an unmistakable sign of their devotion.
  The source of the Cher mystique is a subject of some contention. All agreed that it stems from her failures as much as her successes -- it's a diva hallmark, after all, to have some tough times in your past.
  "She always comes back. No matter what happens, she'll always come back," said Leanne Oldham, a 17-year-old from Kentucky wearing an oversized T-shirt with "Believe" emblazoned across the back. "She came out with the `It's a Man's World' CD and it totally bombed, but then she came out with `Believe' and it totally rocked, so there you go."
  "Before MASK, the tabloids really trashed her," agreed Oldham's friend Chris D'Auria, from Tampa. "She's so talented, and people don't give her credit for it."
  But it doesn't take talent to be a diva. For some, it's precisely Cher's lack of special ability that makes her so appealing.
  "She's not really talented, but she's done it all," said Dan Fleck, a self-described "35-year fan" sporting one of the jaunty sailor hats. "The gold records, the Oscar. So if she can do it, anybody can do it."
  Certainly Cher's voice is duplicable -- Smith did a fair job of copying it when he belted out "I Got You Babe" that afternoon. And Cher herself has gone out of her way, Madonna-style, to emphasize that she's not particularly talented. Watching one of the convention's presentations, a videotape of clips from her interviews over the years, it's clear that she's cultivated the image of everywoman. In one interview, she says she was painfully shy as a child, while in another -- obviously from years later -- she reveals that she was known in high school as "the weird girl."
  Clearly, it's the fate of a diva to be misunderstood -- a fate shared by the diva's fans. "My folks are anti-Cher," Oldham said ruefully. She was echoed by others at the convention who described being teased by family and friends about their devotion.
  The only place these fans could find solace, they agreed, was on the Internet, in chat rooms devoted to Cher.

GRAPHIC: PHOTOPHOTO: Cher impersonator Wayne Smith of Dallas sings to Bert Marino of Mastic Beach, N.Y., at the Cher Convention in Chicago. Photo by Brian Kersey/AP.

Copyright 2000 Chicago Tribune Company

07/09/00

Wild, wired world of the Web brings diva's fans together

   If one believes the television commercials, the whole World Wide Web thing is supposed to be about making connections, about bringing people from anywhere and everywhere together to do whatever they want for whatever reasons they might have.
   In the case of this story, that reason is a celebrity who goes by one name: Cher.
   Its connections include a housewife from Valparaiso, Ind., a man from Australia and a woman originally from Oklahoma who has been using a record store in old Carpentersville to find vintage vinyl Cher albums, still in their shrink wrap.
   Shooting Stars Records and Collectibles along Main Street in old Carpentersville is the shop in question.
   With its bins of hard-to-find record albums, black light posters on the wall and garage band music playing on the turntable, the store seems more suited for a college town than a suburban thoroughfare near Otto Engineering — a company with big government contracts owned by a conservative businessman.
   It also seems an unlikely place to find music from a decidedly middle-of-the road artist like Cher.
   But the store's owner, Bob Sluyter, has been using his contacts to help frequent customer Diana Fields track down old, unwrapped vinyl featuring the music of Cher — recorded both with and without her first and best-known husband, Sonny Bono. Sluyter scrounged the Chicago area and found seven albums for Fields, two at a store in an African-American neighborhood an Chicago's South Side.
   Though she wanted some of the work for her own collection, Fields gave five of the albums to the people running an event called Cher Convention 2000, to be held July 14-15 at the Congress Plaza Hotel in Chicago.

'The coolest voice'
   Fields, 42, lives in Wonder Lake and works in Schaumburg. While growing up in Oklahoma, she used to watch Cher on television and even had a poster of the singer dressed as the main character from her song Dark Lady.
   Cher "has the coolest voice and really pours her heart into it," Fields said.
   She added that her taste in music is varied — "from Led Zeppelin to light jazz" — but Sonny Bono's death a few years ago drew her back to being interested in Cher.
   Using the Internet, she came upon the cher.com Web site, where she learned about plans for the Cher convention. She left a note on a message board there and heard back from Judy Didelot, one of the Cher Convention 2000's planners.
   With that, Fields became a volunteer, finding items to auction off at the convention and putting up convention posters at places such as Shooting Stars in Carpentersville.
   Didelot said the impetus behind the event was twofold: fan togetherness and fan appreciation.
   "I thought it was time fans got together and have a party," she said. "If it weren't for fans, celebrities wouldn't have their parties."
   The www.cherconvention.com Web site puts the reasons for the first-of-its-kind convention in more dramatic terms. According to it, with the use of the Internet, people have found their "Cher family." As friendships through common interests have grown, there has been a call to come together to celebrate Cher.
   "We know we are not alone when we ask ourselves, 'How can we give back the happiness she has given us for so many years?' " posits the Web site. "But what can we give a woman who has everything she could want? A woman who has heard, 'I love you Cher,' a million times? As organizers of the Cher convention we have come up with a unique way to say 'Thank you, Cher.' "

Fans 'Believe'd
   Didelot, 48, said she's never done anything like organizing a convention before. She's been a fan since she took her baby sister to her first concert, a Cher show in 1972.
   "I love her music, her movies and her honesty. I like the fact that, despite what life gives her, she doesn't give up," Didelot said.
   Being a fan of the Academy Award-winning, fiftysomething diva is why she got onto the Internet in the first place back in the fall of 1998, Didelot said. Once online, the Valparaiso housewife quickly found the cher.com site.
   Fans in a chat room there were discussing Cher's most recent recording, the dance pop anthem, Believe, and the album of the same name. According to Didelot, the virtual pals banded together to help take the song to the top of the Billboard charts, where it would stay for four weeks — the longest of any Cher song.
   Didelot said fans pushed each other to request Believe from their local radio stations, sent e-mails to cable music channels VH1 and MTV requesting the video, and wrote to Cher's record label asking to release the song as a single.
   Flush with their success, the fans decided to plan a Cher convention.

   "We owe it all to Believe," said Didelot
   In 1998, Didelot also got to meet her idol. Cher was in town for the grand opening of the Tower Records on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, and Didelot got her to sign a promotional vinyl copy of Believe. It's her most prized Cher possession, along with a signed color photo of Cher sent in response to a fan letter in 1992.
   Cher's fan base does include a large number of middle-aged women, gay men and drag queens, Didelot agreed. She guessed that drag queens dig Cher's wild and crazy outfits, while gay men may be attracted to her as a strong, independent woman.
   Fan Fields admitted she was "kind of surprised there will be a Cher convention," more so that a male fan all the way from Australia is planning to attend.
   "But there are ones for bands like The Beatles every year," she reasoned.
   Shooting Stars Records owner Sluyter, however, was nonplused by the thought of a Cher event. After all, he knew of conventions for 1980s teen heartthrobs Duran Duran, and even a recent one held in Los Angeles for the campy, late 1960s soap opera Dark Shadows. That show's main characters included a fey vampire and a hunky werewolf.
   Sluyter himself had just gotten back from a garage rock convention in Las Vegas.
   In the Internet age, "There's a niche for everything, I suppose. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a Flock of Seagulls convention someday," he quipped, referring to the big-haired New Wave band of the early 1980s. On the Net
www.cher.com
www.cherconvention.com

From Copley Newspapers:  http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/archives/copley/a11cher.htm

07/11/00

A 'CherFest' is coming to Chicago

Wild, wild Web unite's diva's fans

  If you believe the television commercials, the World Wide Web is about making connections, about bringing people from anywhere and everywhere together to do whatever they want for whatever reasons they might have.
  Next week, it will bring to Chicago a housewife from Valparaiso, Ind., a man from Australia, a woman from Wonder Lake and the owner of a vintage-vinal record store in Carpentersville in single-minded purpose to celebrate a celebrity with a single name:
      Cher.
  That's right, on July 14-15 at the Congress Hotel in Chicago, thousands of Moonstruck fans will come together to trade stories, spin records and purchase memorabilia at a first-ever event called Cher Convention 2000.
  'The coolest voice'
Snared in the Web that created this Cher fest is one unlikely fly: Bob Sluyter, owner of Shooting Stars Records and Collectibles along Main Street in old Carpentersville.
  Sluyter has been helping a frequent customer track down old, unwrapped vinyl featuring the music of Cher — recorded both with and without her first and best-known husband, Sonny Bono. Sluyter scrounged the Chicago area and found seven albums, two at a store in an African-American neighborhood on Chicago's South Side.
  Sluyter is doing the chasing for Diana Fields, 42, who lives in Wonder Lake, works in Schaumburg and likes Cher enough to donate five of these albums to the people running Cher Convention 2000.
  While growing up in Oklahoma, Fields would watch Cher on television and even had a poster of the singer dressed as the main character from her song Dark Lady.
  Cher "has the coolest voice and really pours her heart into it," Fields said.
  Her taste in music, she added, is varied — "from Led Zeppelin to light jazz" — but Sonny Bono's death a few years ago rejuvenated her interest in Cher.
  Using the Internet, she came upon the cher.com Web site, where she learned about plans for the Cher convention. She left a note on a message board there and heard back from Judy Didelot, one of the Cher Convention 2000's planners.
  With that, Fields became a volunteer, finding items to auction off at the convention and putting up convention posters at places such as Shooting Stars in Carpentersville.
  Didelot said the impetus behind the event was twofold: fan unity and fan appreciation.
  "I thought it was time fans got together and had a party," she said. "If it weren't for fans, celebrities wouldn't have their parties."
  The www.cherconvention.com Web site puts the reasons for the first-of-its-kind convention in more dramatic terms. According to the site, with the use of the Internet, people have found their "Cher family."
  "We know we are not alone when we ask ourselves, 'How can we give back the happiness she has given us for so many years?' " posits the Web site. "But what can we give a woman who has everything she could want? A woman who has heard, 'I love you, Cher,' a million times? As organizers of the Cher convention, we have come up with a unique way to say, 'Thank you, Cher.' "
  Fans 'Believe'
Didelot, 48, said she's never done anything like organizing a convention before. She's been a fan since she took her young sister to her first concert, a Cher show in 1972.
  "I love her music, her movies and her honesty. I like the fact that, de-spite what life gives her, she doesn't give up," Didelot said.
  Being a fan of the Academy Award-winning, fiftysomething di-va is why she got onto the Internet in the fall of 1998, Didelot said. Once online, the Valparaiso housewife quickly found the cher.com site.
  Fans in a chat room there were discussing Cher's most recent recording, the dance pop anthem Believe, and the album of the same name. According to Didelot, the virtual pals banded together to help take the song to the top of the Billboard charts, where it would stay for four weeks — the longest of any Cher song.
  Didelot said fans pushed each other to request Believe from their local radio stations, sent e-mails to cable music channels VH1 and MTV requesting the video, and wrote to Cher's record label asking to release the song as a single.
  Flushed with their success, the fans decided to plan a Cher conven-tion.
  "We owe it all to Believe," Didelot said.
  In 1998, Didelot got to meet her idol. Cher was present for the grand opening of the Tower Records on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, and Didelot got her to sign a promotional vinyl copy of Believe. It's her most prized Cher possession, along with a signed color photo of Cher sent in response to a fan letter in 1992.
  Fields admitted she was "kind of surprised there will be a Cher convention," and even more surprised that a male fan from Australia plans to attend.
  Shooting Stars Records owner Sluyter, however, was nonplused by the thought of a Cher event. After all, he knew of conventions for 1980s teen heartthrobs in the band Duran Duran and a convention held in Los Angeles for the campy, late 1960s soap opera Dark Shadows.
  In the Internet age, "There's a niche for everything, I suppose. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a Flock of Seagulls convention some-day," he quipped, referring to the big-haired New Wave band of the early 1980s. On the Net
  www.cher.com
  www.cherconvention.com

   
300 Lake Street, Elgin, Illinois 60120

07/09/00
Cher: The Experience

Wild, wired world of the Web brings diva's fans together
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   Shooting Stars Records and Collectibles along Main Street in old Carpentersville is the shop in question.
   With its bins of hard-to-find record albums, black light posters on the wall and garage band music playing on the turntable, the store seems more suited for a college town than a suburban thoroughfare near Otto Engineering — a company with big government contracts owned by a conservative businessman.
   It also seems an unlikely place to find music from a decidedly middle-of-the road artist like Cher.
   But the store's owner, Bob Sluyter, has been using his contacts to help frequent customer Diana Fields track down old, unwrapped vinyl featuring the music of Cher — recorded both with and without her first and best-known husband, Sonny Bono. Sluyter scrounged the Chicago area and found seven albums for Fields, two at a store in an African-American neighborhood an Chicago's South Side.
   Though she wanted some of the work for her own collection, Fields gave five of the albums to the people running an event called Cher Convention 2000, to be held July 14-15 at the Congress Plaza Hotel in Chicago.

'The coolest voice'
   Fields, 42, lives in Wonder Lake and works in Schaumburg. While growing up in Oklahoma, she used to watch Cher on television and even had a poster of the singer dressed as the main character from her song Dark Lady.
   Cher "has the coolest voice and really pours her heart into it," Fields said.
   She added that her taste in music is varied — "from Led Zeppelin to light jazz" — but Sonny Bono's death a few years ago drew her back to being interested in Cher.
   Using the Internet, she came upon the cher.com Web site, where she learned about plans for the Cher convention. She left a note on a message board there and heard back from Judy Didelot, one of the Cher Convention 2000's planners.
   With that, Fields became a volunteer, finding items to auction off at the convention and putting up convention posters at places such as Shooting Stars in Carpentersville.
   Didelot said the impetus behind the event was twofold: fan togetherness and fan appreciation.
   "I thought it was time fans got together and have a party," she said. "If it weren't for fans, celebrities wouldn't have their parties."
   The www.cherconvention.com Web site puts the reasons for the first-of-its-kind convention in more dramatic terms. According to it, with the use of the Internet, people have found their "Cher family." As friendships through common interests have grown, there has been a call to come together to celebrate Cher.
   "We know we are not alone when we ask ourselves, 'How can we give back the happiness she has given us for so many years?' " posits the Web site. "But what can we give a woman who has everything she could want? A woman who has heard, 'I love you Cher,' a million times? As organizers of the Cher convention we have come up with a unique way to say 'Thank you, Cher.' "

Fans 'Believe'd
   Didelot, 48, said she's never done anything like organizing a convention before. She's been a fan since she took her baby sister to her first concert, a Cher show in 1972.
   "I love her music, her movies and her honesty. I like the fact that, despite what life gives her, she doesn't give up," Didelot said.
   Being a fan of the Academy Award-winning, fiftysomething diva is why she got onto the Internet in the first place back in the fall of 1998, Didelot said. Once online, the Valparaiso housewife quickly found the cher.com site.
   Fans in a chat room there were discussing Cher's most recent recording, the dance pop anthem, Believe, and the album of the same name. According to Didelot, the virtual pals banded together to help take the song to the top of the Billboard charts, where it would stay for four weeks — the longest of any Cher song.
   Didelot said fans pushed each other to request Believe from their local radio stations, sent e-mails to cable music channels VH1 and MTV requesting the video, and wrote to Cher's record label asking to release the song as a single.
   Flush with their