page_title: Rodney Bingenheimer
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Rodney Bingenheimer / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Another one from the archive... Sonny &amp; 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&amp;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. I took this now battered and scratched old photograph of them during a rehearsal break at ABC Television’s Wembley studios on 26 May 1966.
context_page_description: Rodney Bingenheimer is an American radio disc jockey who was on the Los Angeles rock station KROQ. He joined SiriusXM's Little Steven's Underground Garage on July 16, 2017. He is notable for helping numerous bands become successful in the American market. His contribution to the music business has been described as important. He developed a reputation for being the first American D.J. to identify new artists and play "edgy new bands" such as Blondie, the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, Van Halen, Guns N' Roses, Duran Duran, The Cure, Joan Jett, The Hollywood Squares, Hole, Symbol Six, No Doubt, Blur, Nirvana, Sonic Youth, The Bangles, X, Germs and many others.
  He managed a Los Angeles nightclub called Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco in the early seventies.
  He was the subject of a documentary by late filmmaker George Hickenlooper entitled Mayor of the Sunset Strip. He was described as a "famous groupie, now respectable" by Mick Jagger, and the film documented Bingenheimer's status as a person with numerous high-profile friends. In 2007, he was honored with the 2,330th star on Hollywood Boulevard.
context_section_description: When Bingenheimer arrived in Los Angeles actor Sal Mineo dubbed him "The Mayor of the Sunset Strip." He formed friendships with pop stars of the day such as The Byrds and Sonny & Cher, for whom he was a live-in publicist. In his own words, Bingenheimer "became the talk of the town because I had the perfect Brian Jones ‘do’ (hairstyle)."
  Bingenheimer worked as an intern at Mercury Records. He escorted British pop star David Bowie to L.A. hot spots. He auditioned for the Davy Jones part in the Monkees. While he did not get chosen, he dressed like Davy Jones and had a similar haircut then later worked as a double or stand-in for Jones in the Monkees episode "Prince and the Pauper". The Monkees stand-in role was a "break" for Bingenheimer.
  Becoming Jones's stand-in was an inauguration into a peculiar cult of celebrity.
  — Film critic Wesley Morris in the Boston Globe 2004.
  Bingenheimer was described as shy, thin and unassuming with a "squeaky voice", usually described as soft. One report suggested his voice was "so soft you have to lean in to hear it".  Another writer described his voice as soft like a "harmonica that cuts through the angry noise of today's frat jocks". His voice has also been described as "tentative" and not a "vibrating personality" or a "great radio voice" but reflecting almost "painful sincerity".  He was described as having a "small, womanish face" and that he's worn the "same haircut (shaggy with bangs)" for most of his life. Actor MacKenzie Phillips reportedly called him a "gnome" and he's been described as having a faint resemblance to Andy Warhol.
  (Bingenheimer is) Homuncular, with spindly little legs and a Prince Valiant mop atop sagging features, he now looks like a strenuously mod Don Knotts.
  — Film critic David Edelstein in Slate.
  Bingenheimer became a groupie of sorts and formed attachments with prominent artists including Sonny and Cher. He met Cher by going backstage after a concert and according to Bingenheimer, she looked at him and said "Oh my God, you look just like Sonny!" They "bonded" and he went to work for them and "they took care of me," he said. 
  In a later interview, Bingenheimer explained that many artists grew to like and trust him because of his sincerity, taste in music and not being pushy. Writer Alison Powell in The Guardian wrote that his "sincerity helped him gain the trust of Brian Wilson, the Beatles, even Elvis". During these years he was photographed near countless celebrities from the worlds of acting and music and Hollywood, including John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Mick Jagger, Adam Ant, the Beach Boys and many others, almost like a "real life rock'n'roll Zelig." He ingratiated himself to many stars, people liked him. He got himself a job as a gofer for the Monkees and worked as a caterer at one point.
  In those days of "free love", he found many young women to "mother him" and sometimes have sex with him. He was described as being a go-between serving the needs of young women and rock stars and often had sex with women as a precondition for them meeting rock stars later on, according to writer David Edelstein in Slate magazine. Wherever he went in the music and club scene, "his face was his passport". According to Led Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant, Bingenheimer had more sex with women than Plant.
  Incidents contributed to Bingenheimer’s notoriety. He and Sonny Bono were reportedly asked to leave the Hollywood restaurant Martoni’s because of their hippie appearance, which reportedly prompted Bono to write the song "Laugh at Me". Bingenheimer brought Beach Boys singer Brian Wilson to the recording session for Tina Turner’s lead vocal on the Phil Spector classic "River Deep, Mountain High," and he was included in a dialogue by the all-female band The GTOs on their Frank Zappa-produced LP Permanent Damage.
  In the late 1960s he was hired by Nik Venet to do publicity for Linda Ronstadt’s group The Stone Poneys but he became so disenchanted with the LA music scene during this period that he moved to the United Kingdom where he enjoyed the London nightclub vibe with the help of hi
caption: Bingenheimer had a certain resemblance to pop star Sonny Bono while Cher and Bingenheimer "bonded" with Sonny and Cher becoming almost "surrogate parents" to him. [11]
exif: {"Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "picnik.com", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered"}