Sonny & Cher - Sonny & Cher's Greatest Hits (1968)

An intriguing hodgepodge of hits and album tracks, the 20-track Sonny and Cher's Greatest Hits is a fine summation of the duo's hit years on Atco Records, 1965-1968. Besides the usual suspects, Sonny and Cher's Greatest Hits makes the effort to uncover some of the lesser-known gems from the Atco catalog. For example, "Don't Talk to Strangers" (not the Beau Brummels song, although it's certainly a second cousin to that folk-rock classic), from the soundtrack to their bizarre film Good Times, is a yearning, minor-key gem, setting Cher's inimitable voice against one of Sonny's more restrained orchestral arrangements. Like the goofy "Podunk" and the tender "Just You," it proves that there was more to Sonny and Cher than "The Beat Goes On" and "I Got You Babe." Naturally, those songs and all of the duo's other chart singles are present and accounted for as well. © Stewart Mason