The harder they fall

We've never owned the 1977 album Two the Hard Way and apparently we aren't the only ones. It was a dismal failure for the artists, Allman and Woman (you can figure this out without our help).

In rating the album "worthless," the Rolling Stone Record Guide review poured on the hurt: "It's hard to imagine a more inappropriate combination ... It's the bottom of the barrel after a long fall for Gregg, and more of the same for Cher." Ouch.

Cher and Gregg Allman, what was that all about anyway? We know little about their ill-fated marriage, other than the fact that the act was consummated on this day in 1975, just three days after Cher's divorce from Sonny Bono had been finalized. And it was over by 1979 (although Cher first filed for divorce nine days after they got hitched).  In between there was this People magazine profile of the couple and their intention of making the union work:

http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20066918,00.html

Hey, not even the tabloids get it right every time.  Nor, apparently, does the Rolling Stone Record Guide.  OK, we still haven't listened to the album, but we strapped ourselves to YouTube long enough to hear the then-lovebirds sing the Smokey Robinson staple "You've Really Got a Hold On Me," and it isn't dreadful at all. In fact it's pretty good.

Go ahead and listen for yourself, on what would have been Cher and Gregg's 36th anniversary.