Goldmine Magazine
October 14, 2022
Gerry Beckley of America on David Cassidy friendship, featured in 'Breaking Bad' and more
Singer-songwriter Gerry Beckley shifts gears between the band America and his solo career.
By Joe Matera
The following is only part of the article.(full article)
Rock singers hang out (L-R): Eric Carmen, David Cassidy (1950-2017) and Gerry Beckley, circa 1975.
GM: You contributed vocals and co-wrote several songs on two of David Cassidy’s albums in 1976: Home Is Where the Heart Is and Gettin’ It in the Street. What was the experience of working with David like?
GB: I was good friends with David. I think when David had kind of, I don’t want to say, peaked and gone through his pop-idol thing, he was at the stage where he really wanted to do stuff that had a little more cred and more depth to it. Bruce Johnston ended up producing Home Is Where the Heart Is. Bruce is also another dear friend of mine from the first time we had met The Beach Boys, so I was down there a lot singing back up and co-writing. Then all of sudden the next thing I knew, I was producing Gettin’ It in the Street as Bruce was moving onto another project, so that’s how it all happened. There is this documentary on David, where he is truly one of those tragic figures and most of it was self-inflicted wounds in his case, and he wrestled with his own demons, but I tried to stay out of that documentary because I didn’t want to tell a darker side as I didn’t necessarily want to be the guy that contributed to all of that stuff. So, it was not as sweet and fun as you would imagine it would have been.
