Don't Ask David Cassidy, `Didn't You Use To Be ...?'
August 29, 1992
By Jonathan Valania
The Morning Call
Playing the role of Keith Partridge on "The Partridge Family" in the early 1970s, David Cassidy was selling Hollywood's goofy ideas about rock 'n' roll and teen life.
You know, all you need is a telegenic family with lip-synching skills, some snazzy velour bell-bottom outfits and a psychedelic school bus and presto, you're a pop music sensation! Or that a hunky pop crooner like Keith Partridge -- a world famous rock star, no less -- would have trouble getting a date for the prom.
Such were the themes explored by "The Partridge Family" from 1970 to 1974, when the show followed "The Brady Bunch" on Friday nights -- a veritable one-two punch of TV kitsch.
These days, Cassidy's selling Hollywood's equally goofy idea of social activism. In the questionable tradition of celebrity compassion songs like "We Are The World," "That's What Friends Are For" and "Voices That Care," Cassidy has written a song expressing concern for the people of Los Angeles in the wake of the riots. All profits from the sale of "Stand And Be Proud" -- a three-minute choral exercise in feel-goodisms that makes Up With People look like cynical malcontents -- will go to the Rebuild LA project.
Unlike other like-minded projects, which usually come across as nothing more than B-list celebrity photo opportunities, Cassidy's concern seems genuine.
"I've plugged it a little bit, but right now I'm trying to distance myself from it because I don't want to seem like I'm grandstanding just to promote my own record (`Didn't You Use To Be ... ')," said Cassidy during a recent telephone interview from New York City.
The songs on Cassidy's new disc -- which he'll perform Wednesday along with a few Partridge Family chestnuts when he appears with the Beach Boys at the Allentown Fair -- mark a departure from the rock signatures of 1990's "David Cassidy."
The new disc comes swathed in the kind of lightweight pop that goes down smooth on VH-1 --safe as milk and about as tasty. Cassidy concedes that his new easy-listening direction was mapped out by the marketing department at Scotti Bros.
(The label) said, `We think you should make this kind of a record.'"
As Donald Trump would say: "It's nothing personal, it's just business."
Perhaps the soft-rock stylings of "Didn't ... " will hold sway on adult contemporary radio, which is fine with Cassidy, who at 42 is getting a little old to target the babysitter set. "This album is more geared toward VH-1. MTV has become exclusively rap and metal," he said. "There is some good music being made in those genres, but it's not what I put on when I come home. But I'm hip to what's going on; just because I don't listen to Pearl Jam doesn't mean I don't know what they're about."
The present, in fact, is all that Cassidy is concerned about. He refused to talk about "The Partridge Family," which left unanswered all questions about what kind of parties Danny Bonaduce threw and what it was like to have Ray Bolger, The Scarecrow himself, as your TV grandfather.
"I just can't talk about it any more," he said. "It was great and I have no regrets, but I live for today. I was pigeonholed as a teen idol, and I wasn't -- I was a serious actor. I knew I had to downplay that image if I ever wanted a career in the entertainment industry."
Luke Perry, are you listening?
David Cassidy opens for The Beach Boys at 8 p.m. Wednesday at the Allentown Fairgrounds grandstand, 17th and Chew streets. For information, call 435-7469.
