David Cassidy on the Web
I'm So Lucky - I Love What I Do
January 22, 2007
The Northern Echo
Former teen heart-throb David Cassidy tells Steve Pratt about his life and career now - and his suprising friendship with Beatle John Lennon.
IT'S hard to believe just how big David Cassidy was in the 1970s. By the age of 21, he was the highest paid solo performer in the world with a fan club boasting a membership bigger than that of the Beatles and Elvis Presley combined.
He owed his teen heart-throb status to his appearances in the TV series The Partridge Family, with his stepmother Shirley Jones, and hit records like I Think I Love You.
Yet he says, over the phone from his US home, he enjoys performing now more than ever. "You appreciate everything at 40 more than at 20 and at 50 even more..." he says, his voice tailing off as you take in his age.
Not that he's as preoccupied by the passing years as much as other people like me are. "I never think about it except when people bring it up and say 'my God, you've been doing this for a long time'," he says.
"I just sometimes reflect on it and think how fortunate I am in getting to do what very few people get to do in their life - something they love. It's never been a job for me. Most people go to work and aren't in love with what they do.
"I've been doing this since I was a kid and I love to play, I guess because I truly do enjoy entertaining people as an actor, writer and as a singer."
With a wife and young son at home, he doesn't go out on the road for long tours these days, tending to "go out and do weekends". He's making an exception for a nine-date Once In A Lifetime UK tour alongside The Osmonds, David Essex and Showaddywaddy, which comes to Newcastle Metro Arena in April.
Yet Cassidy describes himself as an actor rather than a singer. The only thing he can remember planning is that from the age of 18 he wanted to be an actor and following in the footsteps of his Hollywood actor father, Jack Cassidy.
Just as it's a surprise to realise how old he is, his talk about friendship with John Lennon also comes as a surprise. The Beatle and the Partridge Family teen heart-throb hardly seem a likely pairing. But he got to know Lennon after meeting him through a mutual friend in the mid-1970s.
"I got to know him and Yoko when they were together and making the rock and roll albums because we had lived such a similar kind of experience," recalls Cassidy.
"He'd already discovered the key to happiness for balance to his life. He had a wife and a son and I think he discovered himself as a house husband. It took me a while to get it."
He calls the Beatle someone who gave him a lot of insight into his life and work. "He was a friend and mentor in a way. He had a serious, most significant effect on me," he says. "He was very generous in his acknowledgment of me as a talented singer and writer. We got together and played a few times."
Another influence was Frank Sinatra, whom he met in 1965 when his father took him to Vegas as a child. "At that time there was nothing in Las Vegas for kids to do, it was an adult world where everyone dressed for dinner and went to the shows," he says.
A legacy is the stage show The Rat Pack Is Back, written with Don Reos and which is still touring the US a decade after its premiere. The production is a tribute to Sinatra and the Vegas of yesteryear.
That came about after Cassidy completed two-and-a-half years on stage in the gambling city in the $70m dollar show EFX, in which he replaced an injured Michael Crawford.
After doing 1,500 performances in the special effects-laden show, he wanted to get back to something simple and celebrating Sinatra and that 1960s era was a good way to do that.
Occasionally, Cassidy guests in the production as Bobby Darin singing Mack The Knife.
In the Once In A Lifetime concert, he's be performing a lot of his early songs and "taking people on a musical journey of my life, playing songs I know many of them grew up with and I grew up with".
This tour follows shows he did a few years ago with The Osmonds and David Essex. "Basically, I don't tour, I go out and play weekends. I made a commitment not to leave my family for more than two weeks," he says.
He can expect plenty of fans to turn out to see him, in the knowledge that he thinks they sing better than their American counterparts.
"I'm astounded how brilliant they are," he says.
"It's almost as if they get together and rehearse in the parking lot before going into the arena.
" They do a lot more than American fans and that's really cool. I'm blown away by that.
"The Americans are more inhibited in that respect but awfully enthusiastic. The reaction is pretty similar to what it was in the 70s."
He finds there are more men in the audience these days. "When they were boys, they were a little inhibited. As people grow up, they might go with their wives. There's another generation of people who've grown up with it," he says.
His ten-year-old son Beau is following his lead, singing in the all-state choir and going to theatre camp. "He's extremely talented and I attribute that to his mother. She's a terrific singer and songwriter," says Cassidy. "He's pretty much his own person. He likes a lot of different music, I've exposed him to a lot of different music."
* The Once In A Lifetime Rewind Tour featuring David Cassidy, The Osmonds, David Essex and Showaddywaddy comes to Newcastle Metro Arena on April 11. Tickets 0870 707 8000.
