David Cassidy on the Web
David Cassidy relishing time on stage
April 14, 2016
By Thom Jennings
www.niagara-gazette.com
“I’m now on old Route 66,” David Cassidy joked a day after turning 66 years old on April 13. The actor/singer is keeping busy with a weekend full of shows, including a stop at the Riviera Theatre in North Tonawanda on Saturday.
Cassidy started his career as an actor on Broadway shortly after graduating high school and not long after his short-lived run on Broadway, an agent flew Cassidy out to Los Angeles to start his career in television. After guest appearances on shows like “Bonanza” and “Marcus Welby,” Cassidy landed the role of Keith Partridge on “The Partridge Family,” and as he said, “the rest is history.”
That history included a dual career as a television star and recording artist.
“I had the opportunity to work with some of the greatest singers and songwriters in history," he said in a recent interview. "I was in the recording studio before my 19th birthday, and a lot people don’t remember that ‘I Think I Love You’ was a hit before the show came out.”
In fact, “I Think I Love You” was released a month before “The Partridge Family” debuted. The song appeared on the iconic album aptly entitled “The Partridge Family Album,” which included a slew of great songs like “Point Me in the Direction of Albuquerque” and “I Can Hear Your Heartbeat.”
The first three Partridge Family albums all achieved triple platinum sales, which Cassidy credits for creating “a very loyal and fantastic group of fans all around the planet.”
“I love to play. I am very thankful that since the age of 19 I have been able to do what I love for a living and I thank God for that every day,” he said.
Cassidy’s music career has its origins in what many musicians cite as a defining moment.
“I was 13 years old when the Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan and the next day my mom bought me an expensive guitar," he recalled. "It had such an enormous impact on me because I was like a blank screen, so you remember those moments and the impact. Then later on in my career I became close friends with John and Yoko.”
Cassidy said he also had the opportunity to see Jimi Hendrix in concert multiple times. Hendrix, B.B King, Eric Clapton, and Jeff Beck are Cassidy’s favorite guitarists; he noted that he “found them all so remarkable. They are still the guys and influence guitarists everywhere.”
Cassidy’s musical influences are complex “I was always into the blues, rock and pop but since my parents (Jack Cassidy and Evelyn Ward) were in the theater I grew up with Gershwin and Cole Porter and the great songwriters. I always have that imprinted on my brain.”
“My dad taught me a lot in the early days when he was around. Unless you saw him on Broadway, you couldn’t appreciate what a great singer he was. Irish tenor, and he could belt them out with the best of them.”
At the height of his popularity, Cassidy was selling out stadiums that filled up with screaming teenage girls. The mayhem was similar to what the Beatles faced a decade earlier, and even caused Cassidy to stop touring for an extended period.
These days Cassidy is playing venues like The Riviera, and while he may not be living the life of a 1970s-era pop star, he still loves performing live.
“I’ve never enjoyed it more. When you are dealing with screaming teenagers, it can be tough. The reaction of my fans today is special," he said. "Every night is different, nothing is scripted, and it gives me a chance to get to know the fans and for them to learn a little about me.”
Since his rise to fame, many people have learned about Cassidy’s family, which includes his famous father Jack Cassidy, who passed away in 1976, his stepmother and screen mother Shirley Jones and half-brother Shaun. Often missing from the discussion is David’s mother, Broadway actress Evelyn Ward, who passed away in 2012 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s.
“She was a wonderful woman, very loving and caring. She had to struggle when I was a little boy and after my parents split. We moved in with my grandparents and she had to support us because my grandfather’s pension was so small, he was a meter reader,” Cassidy recollected.
“I remember mostly her kindness and loving support of me, she wasn’t strict but she was firm. She knew she had a wild boy, and I wasn’t bad, just a bit wild. She gave everything in terms of love and tenderness, and she was frustrated that she never became a big star but was very proud of me.”
When talking about her battle with Alzheimer’s, David’s voice turns somber. “The last three years of her life she could not speak or communicate. Watching someone you care about that was so vibrant disappear was very painful. I was her only living relative, she only had me, I have no other full brothers or sisters.”
Cassidy has done public service announcements to increase awareness about Alzheimer’s and the need for research and more caregivers.
David calls his show a “celebration of my life and career,” that will include his hits with the Partridge Family and solo material including “I Write the Songs” which was a hit for Cassidy in the U.K well before Barry Manilow’s version.
Tickets for An Evening With David Cassidy at The Riviera Theatre start at $35 and are available through the Riviera’s website Rivieratheatre.org or 692-2413
