David Cassidy on the Web
David Cassidy is ready to rock Agoura Hills
The singer, who will perform July 30, chats with The Star about music, family and baseball
July 21, 2010
By Mark Wyckoff
www.vcstar.com
www.vcstar.com
Photo by Amy Shatzen
An unreleased recording of David Cassidy covering The Temptations' 1969 hit "Can't Get Next To You" can be heard on producer Craig J's Web site, http://www.craigj.com. "He did the basic track, I went in and recorded the vocal and then he added a whole bunch of other stuff when he mixed it," Cassidy says. "He sent it to me, I downloaded it, and I said, 'It sounds pretty wicked.' "
It was just one of those happy accidents. Or, more to the point, one of those "Come On Get Happy" accidents.
David Cassidy and his four-piece band were in the middle of sound check earlier this month at the Silverton Casino Lodge in Las Vegas when bass player and musical director Frank Fabio hit an errant key on his laptop, which was wired into the venue's sound system. Suddenly, bursting forth from the speakers came "Come On Get Happy," but not the ultra-poppy version used as the opening theme of "The Partridge Family," the smash ABC sitcom that turned Cassidy into a rock star in the early 1970s.
No, this pulsing version was from 2007. It was a track off "Part. II: The Remix," a 13-song disc that featured Cassidy teaming up with Chicago remix wizard Craig J to put a slammin' new dance spin on his old hits. Though Cassidy and his group regularly play the remixed versions of "I'll Meet You Halfway" and "Cherish" in concert, the version of "Happy" they'd been playing for the past decade had a horn-influenced, big-band vibe. And Cassidy, truth be told, was sick of it.
As the fresh, remixed version of "Happy" blared over the speakers, drummer Teri Coté began to dig the groove and started playing along with the track. Cassidy, and everybody else on stage, started hearing untapped possibilities.
"We kind of looked at each other and went, 'Wow,'" said Craig J, who recently took over as the full-time keyboardist in Cassidy's band. "We all thought the groove and the sensibility of it was cool, so we took the song and reworked it around that. It started to get sexier and more down-tempo and had a little more oomph to it. We all felt really good about it."
Especially Cassidy.
"It's a little slower, and it's got a little more groove to it and more bottom," he said by phone last week, obviously pleased. "When you lower the key, it has more strength and it has more feel."
Ventura County fans will get to hear this new version July 30 when Cassidy returns to The Canyon in Agoura Hills for his first show there in four years. Expect a mix of Partridge Family classics ("I Can Feel Your Heartbeat," "Echo Valley 2-6809," the No. 1 behemoth "I Think I Love You"), choice covers ("Crossroads," "Hush," "Ain't No Sunshine") and a song that, until Vegas last week, Cassidy hadn't played live in 19 years.
'This ain't a dress rehearsal'
As Cassidy enters his fifth decade in show business, the singer-actor-producer has downshifted the driving ambition that, in the 1990s, reignited his career, hurtling him back into Billboard's Top 40 with "Lyin' to Myself," onto the Broadway stage with "Blood Brothers" and into the Vegas stratosphere with the massive production show "EFX" at the MGM Grand. He began applying the brakes last decade, leaving the heat and grind of Sin City behind for the balmy beaches of South Florida, where he lives with his wife of 19 years, songwriter and Arbonne entrepreneur Sue Shifrin-Cassidy.
In the four years since he last appeared at The Canyon, he's played throughout North America, toured the United Kingdom twice, updated and re-released his autobiography and starred in the short-lived ABC Family sitcom "Ruby & The Rockits." The series was Cassidy's dream project: a show in which he was able to work with all three of his half brothers. Shaun created and produced it; Patrick co-starred; and Ryan worked behind the scenes as a set dresser.
Even as the 40th anniversary of "The Partridge Family" approaches this fall, Cassidy's status as a pop-culture touchstone remains undiminished. British glitter-punk group Betty and the Werewolves paid homage to him last year in the song "David Cassidy" and English writer Allison Pearson does the same in "I Think I Love You," her 2010 novel about "love, delusion and David Cassidy." The book, released last month in England, hit Amazon's contemporary fiction Top 20. If that weren't enough, "Could It Be Forever?," a new comedy about "love, friends and David Cassidy," is set to premiere in August at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Ireland.
Cassidy turned 60 in April, a milestone he acknowledges but doesn't dwell on. "I'm still in search of balance, I guess," he said. "You try and balance your family and the time you have on this Earth, because this ain't a dress rehearsal."
Life, he said matter-of-factly, is "pretty complicated these days," noting how, like everyone else, he's forced to cope with the "crashing of investments, home values" and "the cost of maintaining everything." Still, he realizes he's more fortunate than most. "I always remind myself of that," he said.
Cassidy spends most of the summer months in upstate New York overseeing his small horse-breeding and -racing operation. It's his passion, he said, but "I do much less now with it than I used to because I'm in a different place in my life."
One huge change has been learning how to be an empty-nest dad. Beau, his only child with Sue, begins his sophomore year at Boston University in the fall. His major? Theater, naturally.
Cassidy's daughter from a previous relationship, 24-year-old Katie Cassidy, grew up in Ventura County's Bell Canyon with her mother, model Sherry Williams, and stepfather, Thousand Oaks doctor Richard Benedon. Katie's Hollywood career is flourishing. In the past year alone, she's starred in the big-screen "Nightmare on Elm Street" remake, the CBS horror series "Harper's Island" and the CW's steamy "Melrose Place" reboot. This fall, she joins the cast of "Gossip Girl" on the CW. Though their relationship has been strained in the past, dad and daughter are closer now than they've ever been. "It's nice when your dad can be your friend," Katie told People magazine last year.
Cassidy treasures the time he gets to spend with family. He traveled to Texas last month to see Patrick star in a "revisal" of the musical "It's a Bird It's a Plane It's Superman" at the Dallas Theater Center. Patrick was playing the villainous Max Menken, a role their father, the late actor Jack Cassidy, originated on Broadway in 1966.
Cassidy was 16 when he saw his father perform in that show, and was blown away by his Tony-nominated performance. "It was at the time I was closest to my dad," Cassidy said, "probably the only summer or two where we ever had what you'd call somewhat of a relationship. It was a great time for me."
Cassidy was similarly impressed by Patrick who, according to a review in Variety, "steals every scene that isn't bolted to the floor with spectacularly snide villainy and impressively energetic dance moves."
"I told Patrick, 'It's the best thing you've ever done,'" Cassidy said. "And I told him, 'There are only two people on Earth now who are meant to play that role: You and me. And I'm now jealous that it's you.' It's the first time I've ever been jealous of anyone else in any capacity as an actor or singer."
During his stay in Dallas, Cassidy got to be a cool uncle and give Patrick's 14-year-old son, Cole, his very first guitar. As Cole's mom, Melissa, captured it all on video, Cassidy presented his wide-eyed nephew with his prized 1960 Fender Stratocaster, the very same guitar he's seen clutching on the cover of his 1975 album "The Higher They Climb, The Harder They Fall."
"I went, 'Here, it's yours,'" Cassidy said. "He looked at me like, 'What?' I said, 'This is my guitar. This is the guitar I told you about and it now belongs to you.' The look on his face was priceless."
Pinstripe memories
In addition to horses, Cassidy's other passion in life is baseball. Specifically, the New York Yankees. Cassidy grew up in West Orange, N.J., just a bus trip and train ride away from what he calls the "epicenter of baseball," Yankee Stadium.
Given his allegiance to the team, it's no surprise that the death last week of longtime Yankees owner George Steinbrenner rattled him. He learned the news just two minutes before the start of this interview, and requested a 15-minute delay so he could "process it all."
When he got back on the phone, Cassidy remembered how thrilled he was when Steinbrenner invited him to a Yankees game in 1998, the year the team swept the San Diego Padres in the World Series. He took Beau, who was 8 at the time and already obsessed with the Yankees, and they sat in Steinbrenner's box, right next to the dugout.
"We got pictures and autographs with Derek Jeter and most of the Yankees. El Duque gave my son a bat, a ball," Cassidy recalled. "I think they were playing Toronto and they had the chance to win the game in the bottom of the ninth, but they didn't. And Beau started crying because they lost. (Right fielder) Paul O'Neill came over and - I'm not kidding - he said, "Hey, what's the matter buddy? Don't worry. We're still gonna win it all." And they did!"
Cassidy started following the Yankees in 1957. He was 8 when his grandfather, Fred Ward, took him to see his first Yankees game on June 8, 1958. They caught the first game of a Sunday doubleheader between the Yankees and the Cleveland Indians. Though the Yankees would go on to win the World Series that year, beating the Milwaukee Braves in seven games, they were pummeled that day by the Indians 14-1 in what would be their worst loss of the entire season.
"That was disappointing, but it was just great to see the players and stuff," Cassidy remembers. "I saw Mickey Mantle. I saw Yogi Berra. I saw Whitey Ford. It was great. It was awesome. It was a thrill I'll never forget."
Cassidy attended a few more games at Yankee Stadium before he and his mom, Evelyn Ward, moved from West Orange to Los Angeles in 1961. Suddenly, he was surrounded by Dodgers fans. That was particularly tough to deal with two years later in 1963, when the Dodgers swept the Yankees in the World Series.
"The World Series games were played during the day and the teachers used to let us listen to the games on transistor radios with little earpieces," Cassidy said. "When the Dodgers would score, all the kids around me would scream. I was just devastated when the Dodgers beat the Yankees, but they had (Sandy) Koufax and (Don) Drysdale and they beat Whitey Ford and Mickey."
Cassidy's friendship with Steinbrenner developed in the 1990s. He wishes it had been earlier.
"I've always had this regret, this deep regret, that I did not know George Steinbrenner before he bought the club in 1973," Cassidy said. "Because I was a very wealthy man for that time and could have, had I known him, bought into the club. Obviously, it would have been a tremendous investment, but just to have been a small, tiny piece of that there would be no replacing that kind of thrill, that kind of high, that kind of joy."
Band on the run
Cassidy most certainly is thrilled with his current band: bassist Frank Fabio, drummer Teri Coté and rotating guitarists Matt Sullivan and Ryan Bull. "When you've got friends and you've got people who love to be with you, to play with you, who know how much they're appreciated well, that's what it's all about," Cassidy said.
The addition of Craig J into the mix on keyboards has Cassidy over the moon. He takes over for Rob Cooke, who wanted to curtail his touring duties in order to spend more time with his two young children.
"Craig's given me the greatest gift," Cassidy said. "He said, 'Anytime you want me to come out, I'll come out.' And I said, 'How about every time?' He said, 'I'm there.'"
Craig J is stoked about playing more live shows, something he rarely gets to do. Usually, he's locked away in his Chicago studio, writing music for television, licensing songs for commercials or crafting No. 1 dance remixes for the likes of the Pet Shop Boys, Lily Allen and Depeche Mode.
"There's a creative openness to this group of people that I'm really enjoying," Craig J said. "David really wants to continue to put a fresh spin on some of the classics and also add new things. I haven't known him that long, but I've never seen him so fired up creatively. He's just been really on fire lately. We can all flow off him and with him."
That's how they approached the recent deconstruction and reconstruction of "Doesn't Somebody Want to Be Wanted," a No. 6 hit for The Partridge Family in 1971 that Cassidy hadn't performed in concert for 19 years. The song always made Cassidy cringe because the producers had forced him to talk in the middle of it, a la Elvis Presley in "Are You Lonesome Tonight?"
"I showed up (in Vegas) at the 5 o'clock sound check with the idea of doing the song," Cassidy said. "The key we originally recorded it in wasn't right. It didn't have enough bottom to it. So I said, 'Let's just find a little more of a groove.' We took the key down and it added more strength to it, and I loved playing it."
Cassidy has a lot more material he could unearth and play in concert, but he's reluctant to do so because he doesn't believe the songs would go over well with the kind of casual fans that pack the casino shows he so often plays.
"Most people that are there, in a casino, they're there for the whole experience. They're not just there for David Cassidy," he said. "They're there to gamble, to eat dinner, to go to the pool, to play golf and, maybe, to see a show. Those are the people you have to attract. You can't attract them playing 'When I'm a Rock 'n' Roll Star.' "
When it's suggested he could pluck a different track or two off one of the early Partridge Family albums, perhaps a tune like "Brown Eyes," Cassidy considers the idea and then politely discounts it.
"I don't want to play it," he said. "I've thought about playing that. I've thought about playing 'I'm Here, You're Here.' I've thought about playing a bunch of different songs and the ones I'm playing now are the ones that work for me now. They're like a suit that still fits. 'Brown Eyes' and some of the other songs don't fit me anymore. It's a very sweet, innocent song that belonged to a 21-year-old guy. It doesn't belong to a 60-year-old guy. I liked it. I still think it's a good little song, but it just doesn't fit me now."
If Cassidy's open to it, Craig J would love to integrate "I Can't Get Next to You" into the set list. He and Cassidy recorded a cover of The Temptations' 1969 No. 1 hit two years ago in Santa Monica when they were working on early demos for "Ruby & the Rockits."
The throbbing, horn-drenched track is killer, with Cassidy nailing the vocal nuances of the different Temptations, who each sang separate lines in the original.
"That was what was so cool about it," Craig J said. "He channeled all of those personalities in his solo voice. He brought a singularity to something that was recorded by a bunch of different characters. It's almost like you're hearing different facets of his personality."
The song's never been released, but Craig J has posted it on his website, http://www.craigj.com, and on his MySpace site, http://www.myspace.com/craigjmusic.
"Before everything got wacky economically and things really got weird with the labels, my hope had been, post 'Remix,' to do an album of David covering classic R&B and soul," Craig J said. "He would f------ destroy it. I don't think people realize how good of a soul singer he is. He's got it, man. He feels it."
_______________________________
David Cassidy
The singer will perform at 9 p.m. July 30 at The Canyon, 28912 Roadside Drive, Agoura Hills. Tickets, $48.50, are available by calling 818-879-5016 or visiting http://www.canyonclub.net. Cassidy's website is http://www.davidcassidy.com.
Unreleased song
Cassidy's 2008 cover of The Temptations' "I Can't Get Next to You" can be heard at producer Craig J's websites, http://www.craigj.com and http://www.myspace.com/craigjmusic.
Photo by Amy Shatzen
David Cassidy will play a mix of solo hits, Partridge Family classics and choice covers when he performs July 30 at The Canyon in Agoura Hills.
ABC FAMILY
David Cassidy, far left, got to work with half brothers Shaun, Patrick and Ryan last year on the ABC Family series "Ruby & The Rockits." Some of the music for the sitcom was recorded at a private studio in Ojai
