UPDATE!

David Wolfert, one of two principal producers on Cher’s 17th LP, I Paralyze remarked to Vibe On Records, “In most people’s minds she occupies the celebrity space instead of the recording artist space, so people tend to see her only through her most successful records.”

Cher is often confined to “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves,” “If I Could Turn Back Time” and “Believe.” Great songs to be sure, but they’re only snapshots of a more complex musical story rarely discussed. Cher’s own reticence to anthologize herself has created “pockets” of lost music within her catalog, which unquestionably includes I Paralyze.

Cher signed to Columbia Records in 1981 to record with Wolfert and Olivia Newton-John hitmaker Phil Farrar. Wolfert recalled, “I was a very young guy, untested, though I’d had a few hits. I wasn’t at the level of most of the guys she was used to working with. I think she liked that because there was something youthful about it.”

I Paralyze’s birth ran in tandem with Cher’s New York City residency for continued honing of her acting skills. Said skills landed her on Broadway with “Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean” which preceded a hit streak of films between 1982 and 1987 that saw her temporarily break from music.