All Mike Khouri Photos: Alan Mercer
I first became aware of Mike Khouri in 1999 when he produced, compiled, and chose the artwork for Cher’s release on MCA ‘Bittersweet: The Love Songs Collection’ CD. He had already written the liner notes for the CD ‘If I Could Turn Back Time: Cher’s Greatest Hits’ and was fast becoming the guy people went to for Cher career information.
VH1 asked Mike to be the Music Consultant for the Cher episode of ‘Behind the Music.’ He contributed practically all the album jackets, music used, as well as magazine covers used on the TV Show. He also wrote the liner notes for the ‘I Paralyze’ re-issue and contributed archival items to the U.K Special : ‘The South Bank CHER Special.’ He gave MCA the photo they used for the cover of ‘CHER: The Millennium Collection’ and contributed photos to MCA/Hippo Records release, ‘CHER: The Ultimate Collection.’
Mike acted as the Research Archive Consultant to the U.K. BBC Special, ‘Still Cher’ and assisted ‘A & E’ with the Biography Special. He also contributed archives to the 2002 Billboard Music Awards Television Special: ‘Tribute to Cher.’ He wrote the liner notes to the DVD release, ‘The Sonny and Cher Show: The Christmas Collection’ and the DVD release, ‘CHER: Extravaganza…Live at the Mirage.’
Most importantly Mike got the opportunity to present Cher with her RIAA Gold Plaque for the CD he wrote the liner notes to: ‘If I Could Turn Back Time: Cher’s Greatest Hits.’ No wonder he is the Cher expert!
Beginning with his twenty-four year career at Universal and into today where he now works for ‘Sesame Street,’ Mike has never wavered in his dedication to all things Cher. I met with Mike at the Universal Hilton last week while he was in town.
AM: Mike how did you end up working for Sesame Street after working for Universal music for so many years?
MK: When the digital world came about, it hurt the physical world. I dealt with the marketing of physical CD’s. I was in distribution so it put a lot of people out of work. I was laid off after 24 years. A few months later I ended up at ‘Sesame Street.’ I went from one of the largest companies in the world to an even larger company. My entire adult career has been with these two companies. I feel very blessed about that.
AM: You are very blessed. How did you get to Sesame Street?
MK: That is the question! “Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?” Is that what you just asked? (laughter) As odd as this sounds I got there through a posting on monster.com.
AM: Wow! I didn’t know that worked!
MK: I didn’t either.
AM: How close is Sesame Street connected to The Jim Henson company?
MK: We still get our muppets from the Jim Henson Company. We still have a very strong relationship with them, but other than that, they have nothing to do with the show.
AM: Grover is my favorite muppet!
MK: He is mine as well. We shot a health and wellness video together.
AM: Where is the show taped?
MK: It’s done in New York.
AM: Don’t you live in Boston?
MK: Yes I live in Boston, but I commuted to New York for 5 years. I had an apartment there. Now I travel so much that I just work out of my home.
AM: So now back to your time at Universal.
MK: I lived my dream and that was to work in the music business. I started in retail but made my way to what was then called MCA. The dream kept going. I was very fortunate.
AM: So when was the first time you had an opportunity to work with Cher?
MK: First of all the reason I was in the music business to begin with was because of Cher. As a child of twelve when she first came on television I was so taken by this beautiful woman. I started following her career. At sixteen I got a subscription to Billboard magazine so I could see what she was doing and I fell in love with the business. I’ve actually had the opportunity to tell her that my success was based on her.
AM: How did she react to that?
MK: More amazing than I could ever imagine. She grabbed my hand and she said to me, “I may have led you to a path where you could either go right or left and maybe I pushed you down the right path, but if you weren’t great at what you do, you wouldn’t be successful.” So here I was telling Cher that she was responsible for my success and she was telling me that I was responsible for it. She also said she may have been an inspiration, but my success is totally based on me.
AM: Well those are true words.
MK: It was great! She is so humble.
AM: When was the first time you met Cher?
MK: The first time I met her was in 1980.
AM: How did that happen?
MK: I went to Atlantic City to see her. At that time her tours consisted of Las Vegas and Atlantic City. I somehow got the nerve to get on the house phone at the resort hotel and ask for her manager, and even more crazy, he picked up.
AM: You never know. Mostly that wouldn’t work, but this time it did!
MK: From that one meeting I never had to pay to see Cher again. I was invited to video shoots and concerts, put up in hotels, traveled in limousines when they were in town. My relationship with Cher was now completely different.
AM: What did you do professionally for Cher?
MK: The first thing I did professionally was write the liner notes for the Geffen CD, “If I Could Turn Back Time: Cher’s Greatest Hits.” Geffen knew that I knew a lot about Cher so they came to me and asked if I would write the liner notes.
AM: Did you have experience writing liner notes?
MK: I’d never done anything like that before. They told me to just do what I felt was right so I wrote the liner notes based on each year and each song and what was happening in her life. They came out really great. I then co-produced and compiled a CD called “Bittersweet: The Love Songs Collection.”
AM: This is the entire “Bittersweet White Light’ album plus some extra cuts. I remember when it came out. I was so excited because I love that album so much!
MK: “Bittersweet White Light” was an album that was released in 1973 that MCA had never re-issued. They didn’t even know they had it. It was one of my favorite albums of all time with her singing the standards.
AM: Sonny produced it so well.
MK: It was based on the great response she would get when she sang those songs on ‘The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour.’
AM: She was ahead of her time with this recording.
MK: Way ahead, later everyone was putting out a standards album. Nobody really knew about this record because it was not a success. It didn’t have any hit singles and it went away really quick. I told MCA they had a great album in their vaults. I wanted to compile with that some ballads from her MCA albums so I added 8 tracks of album cuts. The only song that was a hit was 'The Way Of Love’ and other than that they were all album tracks that were never singles.
AM: You got to choose which songs were on the CD?
MK: Yes, I picked songs that I think fit in with the original album.
AM: Do you know if she likes that album?
MK: I actually think that she does because she has talked many times about doing a show of standards at Carnegie Hall. I think that she really does like the record. It’s not a hit in her discography so it’s just put in the past.
AM: What do you think of the Columbia release from 1980, ‘I Paralyze’?
MK: It so happens that I worked on that reissue as well. It was released on one of our smaller labels at Universal and they asked me to work on it. That was just a straight reissue of the original. I wrote the liner notes to that album. I like that album a lot. It’s one of those records where she was in transition. The Billboard ad for the album was even telling everyone she was on Broadway in Robert Altman’s “Come Back To The Five and Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean.” I don’t think they knew what to do with this album.
AM: Why do you think these albums were released on CD?
MK: These albums started being released after her success with ‘Believe.’ ‘The Greatest Hits’ album went gold and she hadn’t had a gold album in a while. The highlight of my career was when I got to present her with the plaque for her gold album back stage in Boston. Geffen only made two plaques in the world, one for me and one for Cher. I got to present her’s to her and she autographed mine.
AM: Do you have any idea why Warner Bros. has never released the four albums she did for them on CD?
MK: I honestly have no idea.
AM: No one in the world can answer that question.
MK: There’s rumors that she owns the rights to them and is holding on to them. People really, really want them.
AM: ‘Stars’ seems like such an important album.
MK: ‘Stars’ is a really popular album with her fans. Out of those albums I think 'I’d Rather Believe In You’ is one of her best albums ever. A friend of mine just remixed ‘Long Distance Love Affair’ which was the single from that record. It sounds as awesome today as it did back then.
AM: When was the last time you saw Cher?
MK: I saw her backstage at Caesar’s on May 8, 2010. We talked for a long time.
AM: Do you know anything about her new album that is coming out soon?
MK: The only thing I know is what she has said. There is a duet with Lady Gaga. Pink has written a few songs for her which is really great. They have the same management team so it makes sense. They are keeping everything very quiet. The first single is going to be a Cher solo and not the Lady Gaga duet. Cher said the single is coming out in September, but she also said September of 2011. We’re hoping the album will be out by the end of the year.
AM: Have you lived all your fantasies in regard to Cher?
MK: I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve been with her so, so many times. I have to tell you she is the warmest, most welcoming person that I could ever imagine her being. You can be afraid when you meet an idol as to how they are going to be. She has always, always been so inviting. I can’t even begin to tell you what a wonderful person she is. If I have a fantasy, it would be to work more with her and remix her classic songs like 'Half Breed.’ I think I’ve lived it already. I really do. I just always wanted to meet her.
AM: Millions of people want to meet her but very few get the opportunity.
MK: Since she's a superstar, it isn't easy to get close to her.
Photo of Mike and Cher courtey of Mike Khouri
