Cherilyn Sarkisian first met Salvatore Bono in a Los Angeles coffee shop in November 1962, when she was sixteen. The older Bono (11 years her senior) was working for record producer Phil Spector at Gold Star Studios in Hollywood.  The two became fast friends, eventual lovers, and later married. Through Bono, Cher started as a session singer, and sang backup on several of Spector’s classic recordings, including "Be My Baby" by the Ronettes, "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" by The Righteous Brothers and Darlene Love's "A Fine, Fine Boy". In the composition by Darlene Love, the listener can clearly hear Cher and Sonny close to the mic (along with Love, who recorded her own backing vocals).  After watching an early tape of Dylan and Baez singing "Blowing in the Wind", it appears that Phil Spector used Sonny and Cher as a comic re-creation of them.

 

In 1967 Sonny and Cher released their third album, In Case You're In Love. It peaked at number 46 in the U.S. charts. It contained two hit singles, both written by Bono, "The Beat Goes On" (#6 on the Billboard Hot 100) and "Little Man" (#21 on the Billboard Hot 100), that peaked at the number one in five European countries.