David Cassidy 1950-2017

[eighthobstruction]

....I only bring this news to the forum because this chap had a lovely clear unstrained natural voice to match his suntanned moptop handsome beauty. And a very lovely man as well it seems. He was lucky (as well as talented) that he looked like a clean living but sexy teenager while he was actually a mature man in his twenties. I was never interested in his music or TV stuff, but like many young men of similar age [me], what a pain it was to see his pimple free face, nazzy clothes, and a lovely lovely Red Ford Mustang....RIP David....

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Horrible long illness, too. No particular feelings towards his Music, (I remember watching The Partridge Family, mainly for Susan Dey) but girlfriends had affectionately embarrassed memories of how he had "influenced" their teenage years.

[eighthobstruction]

Yes that was what I was after really, a Viox pop type report on all your teenage years....best years of my life [excepting teachers and schhol lessons]....

[Lat-Literal]

This is sad news.

It is also interesting socially.

I think I got this right in some ways in over-elaborate posts on another thread when placing him culturally in the sphere of female late childhood/early teens adulation. My example was local but it was a phenomenon to be found almost everywhere. On Radio 4's "Today", biographer Allison Pearson mentioned the triptych no less that she had of Cassidy in her bedroom which received three kisses from her daily. There was no real equivalent for the male sex other than, I think, having footballing heroes which is a very different version of romance.

Along with the Osmonds and to some extent the Jackson Five, it was the phenomenon that could have been seen to have been made purely historical by the Beatles' abandoning live performance because they couldn't be heard. Half a decade had passed since the images of hundreds of screaming girls interspersed with tens of almost equally hyped up boys being together and not knowing quite what was going on. Part a notional sexuality and part just hysteria in the moment. Subsequently, pop became rock which meant serious, albeit often with a greater sense of humour. That seriousness was intended to be forever more, even with this apparent temporary blip in the early 1970s, notwithstanding Adam and the Ants circa 1980. But then 20 years later there was an unexpected resurgence as the newly branded boy and girl bands arrived to stamp out once and for all any predominance of claims to high art.

Cassidy, whose early listening preference was for Hendrix and who in the eighties championed bands like the B52s, was arguably the original of what became a pattern. Singers who achieved massive success when very young on the basis of non-threatening voices and looks but who quickly wanted that to translate into areas where they would be seen as serious artists. The son of actor Jack Cassidy - who was personally complex at the best of times before succumbing in later years to mental illness - he was not necessarily by way of background as calm or secure as he seemed in such circumstances. A sensitive man who, while having edges, was mainly more pleasant than most celebrities, the stampede in his heyday which led to the death of a fan had troubled him greatly. Apart from peaking too early, what I see is someone who not only leant on alcohol but nursed a mother with whom he was close through seven years of her dementia to when he was 64 and she was 89. Consequently, the key issue raised by his tortured state in his final years may well be about the health of carers.

The man could write songs although he will be remembered for some strong recordings of other writer's songs. You will find me putting forward the positive cases for the light stuff and bubblegum from those eras because there was often real songcraft. Those who were involved in that sphere should, with hindsight, have not judged their output so dismissively. In contrast, the ones who seek to be more substantial today are probably right in their thinking on the grounds that the light offerings in their early fame will mostly not be especially memorable in the decades to come. It was Tony Romeo's "I Think I Love You" which understandably bounced out of the radios today courtesy of the Partridge Family. That pre solo vehicle, of course, sat just off the Monkees and the cartoon Archies - that is, alongside "Hope and Keen's Crazy Bus". Several decades later they all combined in the inventive costume department of "The Big Bang Theory". They also covered Paul Anka, Rupert Holmes, Mann and Weil and many others. Romeo wrote "I Am A Clown" and has been mentioned "How Can I Be Sure" emanated from the Rascals but ""Cherish" arrived from The Association, "I Write The Songs" was Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys", Daydreamer" was accompanied by "Daydream" by John Sebastian of the Lovin' Spoonful and "The Puppy Song" was Nilsson's. None of these writers was musically naïve. Their contribution should not be underestimated.

Pearson said in an interview with him that when he died a small part of many middle aged women would die with him. His response was mild rather than egotistical but he didn't wholly disagree. The less obvious setting, though - and it is represented by the fun in the Partridge Family television series and the kinds of songwriters I have outlined more than in the marketing of him as a teen idol - is of a pop culture in which commerciality hadn't yet become a commodity-by-business model but was instead seemingly more impulsive, haphazard and sunnier if and when it wanted to be. Contrivance is one thing but it is only since 1990 that the music industry has chosen to forget that it is best when not so obviously contrived.

The Partridge Family - I Think I Love You - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJYSu2OVCGM

RIP David Cassidy