I Got You Babe

Sonny Bono, a songwriter and record producer for Phil Spector, wrote the lyrics to and composed the music of the song for himself and his then-wife, Cher, late at night in their basement. Session drummer Hal Blaine performed the drums for the song. Bono was inspired to write the song to capitalize on the popularity of the term “babe,” as heard in Bob Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me Babe” which was a hit for The Turtles. Upon recording and releasing the song, “I Got You Babe” became the duo’s biggest single, their signature song, and a defining recording[citation needed] of the early hippie countercultural movement. In August 1965, the single spent three weeks at the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 and #19 on the R&B charts in the United States. The duo’s single also hit #1 in the United Kingdom and was subsequently included on their debut album, Look at Us. The song placed at #444 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of all time.

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onny & Cher were an American pop music duo, actors, singers and entertainers made up of husband-and-wife team Sonny and Cher Bono in the 1960s and 1970s. The couple started their career in the mid-1960s as R&B backing singers for record producer Phil Spector. The pair first achieved fame with two hit songs in 1965, “Baby Don’t Go” and “I Got You Babe”. Signing with Atco/Atlantic Records, they released three studio albums in the late 1960s, as well as the soundtrack recording for an unsuccessful movie, Good Times. In 1972, after four years of silence, the couple returned to the studio and released two other albums under the MCA/Kapp Records label. In the 1970s, they also positioned themselves as media personalities with two top ten TV shows in the US, The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour and The Sonny & Cher Show. The couple’s career as a duo ended in 1975 following their divorce. In the decade they spent together, Sonny and Cher sold 80 million records worldwide. Performing under her first name, Cher went on to a highly successful career as a solo singer and actress, while Sonny Bono was eventually elected to Congress as a U.S. Representative from California. The duo were inducted to the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1998, right after Sonny’s death.