Talking Partridge Family and baseball with David Cassidy in 1991

As part of his unearthing of long-form music interviews from his music critic life last century at The Baltimore Sun, this is a spirited chat with teen idol, actor and musician David Cassidy, who gave an incredible performance at Max’s On Broadway in Fell’s Point in September 1991.

He battled many demons – including, largely, his own fame – and all of the DUIs, arrests and paparazzi pictures will tell some of the stories of his 67-year journey on earth.

He made girls swoon in my childhood and I vividly remember taking a Partridge Family album cover to Miss Marlene in Berkshire the first time I was getting my hair cut and I wanted it to look exactly like “Keith Partridge.”

And as much as we all singalong to the opening credits and the song, “C’mon Get Happy” as the color Partridge Family is presented, I indeed got a pretty “happy” version of David Cassidy when I interviewed him in October 1991 before he played Max’s on Broadway.

I wound up spending the balance of the pre-show evening upstairs at Max’s on Broadway in a dressing room with David Cassidy, his television brother Danny Bonaduce (who had just been arrested for something drug or alcohol related and was doing a semi-blue standup act as the show opener) and seminal movie reviewer for The Evening Sun Lou Cedrone, who was a family friend of Cassidy and his mother Shirley Jones.

8

David Cassidy was very, very cool to me. I interviewed hundreds of musicians during my “Almost Famous” years The Baltimore Sun.  My time with him will be remembered for his kindness and regular guy normalcy.  

***

David Cassidy discussed his upcoming national anthem performance at Tiger Stadium, expressing his lifelong love for baseball and sadness over the stadium’s demolition. He shared details about his current tour, highlighting sold-out shows and intimate venues. Cassidy mentioned his ongoing litigation with Enigma Records and his efforts to promote his music independently. He also touched on his brother Shaun Cassidy’s new movie and his own musical evolution, emphasizing a mix of old and new material. The conversation concluded with plans for Cassidy to attend the game and meet fans.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

David Cassidy, national anthem, Tiger Stadium, baseball fan, tour success, small venues, grassroots tour, record company, litigation, new material, soulful blues, old songs, fan interaction, emotional afternoon, concert promotion

SPEAKERS

David Cassidy, Nestor Aparicio

8

00:01

4547184549536, okay, great. I’ll

Nestor Aparicio  00:06

give him a call. Okay, thank you. You’ll get this up this morning. Super. Thanks. Hello. Yes. How are you? I’m okay. You found me. We found each other. Yeah, I can tell

00:26

it. I’m in the lobby. Unfortunately, all the phones in this hotel have gone out,

Nestor Aparicio  00:31

8

which is even more bizarre. You’re in Detroit. I’m in Detroit. Somebody probably mugged the phone system or someplace.

00:37

I don’t know what the name of this place, not in Detroit. No one ever is in Detroit. When they’re in Detroit, they’re in one of these and that’s a good thing. Outer for road,

00:52

I’ve been at work in Detroit for a while. I worked in

00:55

downtown Detroit about nine years ago, actually, 10 years ago. Wow, and it was

8

Nestor Aparicio  01:01

frightening. It’s a rough town. The Orioles were there last night. You should have gone over to the game. Tiger Stadium, the best ballpark in the country, and they’re going

01:12

to rip it down. Terrible.

Nestor Aparicio  01:19

You’re singing national anthem Friday, yeah, or Sunday, whatever the last game is, you’re singing national anthem Sunday. That is so cool. I mean, it’s packed. It’s such a big deal here. Well, I

David Cassidy  01:32

8

can only tell you that I’ve been a baseball fan all my life, and I remember when Frank Robinson played there, and Brooks Robinson right there. I was always growing up. I grew up around New York, so when I was a kid, I was a Yankee fan. Orioles were always a team that, you know, we had to be. I, when I moved out to the West Coast, began, I guess, getting a different perspective about baseball. And for the last 1015, years, I have, you know, I have a real soft spot in my heart for all of those old parks, and you know that we’re all trying to hold on to some of the old values in life, but there’s a part of me that’s going to be really sad.

Nestor Aparicio  02:13

I’m going to cry like a baby, to be quite honest. Well, it’s going to be, hopefully my cousin plays for the Orioles, and I think

David Cassidy  02:21

I’m going to be seeing the anthem. They told me that I haven’t had COVID out here, but they told me they wanted me to, and I said I would like to think that’s going to happen, because I play whatever the night before, night after Monday. That’s right on Sunday night right now. Is

Nestor Aparicio  02:39

that the last game? Yeah, that is, it’s two o’clock I’ll be doing It’s wild. Yeah, pretty wild. Yeah, to two o’clock game. How’s the tour coming along?

8

David Cassidy  02:50

Great going really well. Knows Danny opening all the dates or Well, he hasn’t done all of them, but he’s done most of them, and I’m trying to get him to do most all of them now, I think he’s going to be able to do the rest of this leg of this tour. The next couple of weeks, two and a half, three weeks.

Nestor Aparicio  03:10

Yeah, I was up in Hershey the week before you got there. Kind of saddened, because I, I really wanted to see you, but I was there this Saturday before, sort of the Saturday of So,

03:18

yeah, it was good. It was pretty, pretty exciting. Yeah, I read

Nestor Aparicio  03:22

8

your quote of your story. So there was, like, 1000s of people. There is that the biggest show you’ve done so far? We did a show 4000 I think

David Cassidy  03:30

8000 we did a couple of it’s the biggest venue I think we’ve played. We played a couple of 3000 theaters, sold out show in the kitchen about 3130 201 more date, that’s going to be 3500 but yeah, I’ve been trying to play small, large clubs,

Nestor Aparicio  03:55

small theaters, the place you play in your Mondays, about 250

03:57

people. 250 Yeah, no,

8

Nestor Aparicio  04:02

it’s a tiny, tiny little room. No, it’s almost like a row house. It’s really cool. Wow, oh, that’s interesting.

David Cassidy  04:13

I’ve not played a place that small. Think the small place we played was like 600

Nestor Aparicio  04:19

this place is tiny. You

04:21

8

know, it’s funny, because they just added the state the Baltimore date, just like about a week ago.

Nestor Aparicio  04:28

Bayou in Washington doesn’t see much more than that. The bay is only 560 Yeah, 500 Yeah. And that’s very cool club. Place you’re playing in Baltimore is great too. The place you play in Baltimore’s

04:45

Great. Well, part of me going out and doing this tour, it’s like, I’m trying to play grassroots, kind of places where it has a sense of intimacy people. Is really what I had in mind, though.

Nestor Aparicio  04:58

Well, I mean, the people are. Are right in front of you, you’ll be able to put your right arm out and just touch someone. It’s that close

8

05:05

Jacksonville. It was really an interesting day. It was one of the best days we did, small probably that’s what we’ve done, but it was it was so intimate in that killer I never had a chance to play those kind of venues.

Nestor Aparicio  05:32

What did you play when you did tour last

05:35

I played the memorial when I was in Baltimore. Do you have a downtown there’s a convention center or

Nestor Aparicio  05:43

8

Coliseum? Well, the civic center you were playing, basically you an arena tour. I mean, I know how popular where you were. I just don’t stadium.

05:59

So, yeah, I mean, I filled out the biggest building people were playing in on that big

Nestor Aparicio  06:04

way down to fall into little clubs, or, pardon me, is it a big way to fall down? In fact, it’s

David Cassidy  06:11

a startup from like, you know, I never ended up playing. I stopped playing up there and left it for 15 years. I don’t I mean, I’m not embarrassed or humiliated or anything about my success now. I’m proud of it. I’m proud to be one of the acts that can go out now and have a musical presence who made records 20 years ago and who’s still making records and, you know, I can’t. I’m the antithesis of that, you know, for me to go out and to be able to play in a club or in a small theater, to get the kind of response I’ve been getting, it’s like, it’s amazing to me. I like the fact, I mean, nothing we do is taped. There’s no samples. Everything is live. And when you see it all, anything can happen. Any night you see an act go out like that. Now, no one got to see me play like that before. So for me, it’s really like a rebirth. It’s exciting. It’s like a grassroots thing. I’m not sure I’ll be able to economically play these kinds of places again, but I’m happy to be able to go out and do this like this. It’s something I almost always wanted to do. Give people a real opportunity to see me. You know, kind of like you’re real. You really can do it. I can really cut it.

8

Nestor Aparicio  07:43

What’s your record company situation with another record company? Major, okay, because what happened with the Enigma situation? I mean, did you know they were going into litigation with

David Cassidy  08:00

me about that, and I, I’m in litigation with them, and I, I can’t comment on it, but they went out of business, and there is an obligation that is still outstanding to me, and I’m trying to settle with them out of court and not have to take them, but and they have to take them. It’s an ugly, very unfortunate mess that, you know, had I just called back into my sort of my own cocoon and said, Well, screw it, you know, I chose to look at the positive things that I had a tough 20 record in America with a company going out of business. And that’s next to impossible.

Nestor Aparicio  08:37

Nobody was pushing it. It was just on your name alone, if you hadn’t been popular with worked

David Cassidy  08:42

8

my ass off. I went to 112 radio stations myself, and flew all of the United States within three and four cities a day. And I promoted the record with one promotion then, and unfortunately, where it fell apart was that they had no sales force, so they didn’t have product in the stores. Ultimately,

Nestor Aparicio  09:09

you were your own radio rep too. Nobody was working a radio for it. Well, I was

David Cassidy  09:13

doing I had some people that were helping me because they knew that the record was a hit. And, you know, people that were fancied like me and believed in it, and saw how hard I was working and said, you know, gotta put this guy’s record on. And I got some support from some of the stations that knew that there weren’t product in the stores. I knew that it couldn’t legitimately be a big record, that there’s no way you can compete with a major label. My entire retail budget the United States America was $6,000 should be a sense that in one record store on Sunset Boulevard for one artist, you can. In Paris, like, how well did you do? Well when I did better than I did better than anybody for the shot, I think you don’t even know how many albums are sold. You know, they won’t even give me a statement on that. They know. So, you know, I’m sure it’s an irrelevant amount of records, a couple 100,000 probably. But even at that, they didn’t have product in stores. I don’t even look at it. I can’t compare like my sales. I had a company going out of business. So

Nestor Aparicio  10:34

who knows how many upcoming label, which you can’t comment on, who this is going to be? Yeah,

8

David Cassidy  10:39

once I get this thing straightened with capital EMI, I can talk about it. It’s also a good thing not to talk about something. To put your

Nestor Aparicio  10:47

contract Right, right. Always good not to jinx it. Are you working on new material for new album? Are you going to be released?

David Cassidy  10:53

I have been over the last 1011, months, I’ve been ready. People.

Nestor Aparicio  11:01

8

Do you have in your band? Five plus me, six years. That’s why you won Arsenio last last year. I just happened, you know, upon because I never watched Arsenio, that band is out with me now. Okay, I ran across a very strange incident, and need you to fill in the last details. I was in San Diego about six weeks ago, and they gave you some crazy morning wake up call and wanted you to play like a Dunkin Donuts. Do you remember this? I was in San Diego and I was driving towards Los Angeles into the radio, yeah, but six or seven weeks ago, and they gave you a morning wake up call, like eight in the morning, and they wanted you to come out and play dunkin donuts or something. And they brought a guy to your your door

David Cassidy  11:42

of your hotel room. Oh, I know what you’re talking about. What happened? Because

Nestor Aparicio  11:45

I lost the radio station going up towards La, that was about six months ago. Oh, they must have been replaying it.

David Cassidy  11:51

Oh, really, what happened? That was, in fact, that was 10 months ago. Wow. They

8

Nestor Aparicio  12:00

must have just done, like, rebroadcast on it then they did, because I heard it the end of August. It was hysterical. Did you go out and play a coffee house or something? Well,

David Cassidy  12:08

I was in town to doing promotion with the radio station. That’s what I was there to do to promote my record. Okay? And it was a promotional thing, you know, a wild morning, wacky morning guy idea, and there were literally three, 400 people in the parking

Nestor Aparicio  12:31

lot. Bizarre. He played at the Dunkin

12:33

8

Donuts. No, I didn’t play there. I drove through there and waved at them. No, I did not play at the Dunkin Donuts. No, they were actually all there, and they ended up coming over to the radio station, following us over there. And I played all the record, all the songs, I think about

Nestor Aparicio  12:54

it just sounds very wild, because, I mean, I heard it, and I thought it was happening as well. Had

David Cassidy  12:59

you been in any other of the 111 other radio stations, they would have been equally as wild and zany. You know, we did all kinds of wacky things. I did fun stuff with Mark and Brian too in LA right now,

Nestor Aparicio  13:13

they’re the ones that gave you the original push. Well, those are the guys

8

13:16

that called me and I ended up getting a deal as a result of being on the show. I played a couple of the demos that I didn’t write, and no one knew who they were, of course, outside of Los Angeles. But now that they have the illustrated television

Nestor Aparicio  13:33

show, I heard the album last year. Like I said, I saw him, it’s just so much different from anything you you were, you know, accustomed to people that people thought of me and the stuff that I did on the television. Yeah. So somebody from the New York Daily News last week said that you provided a whole generation of music to get braces by. I mean, how’s the new the next album going to differ? And what can you say about that for people that didn’t even hear the Enigma

14:01

more the direction I’m going to go. I wouldn’t say it depicts exactly where it’s going to go, but I’m going to do a little more soulful, kind of bluesy. You know, I’m a singer who can I don’t know if this goes that well for me, but I like to sing different styles. I think I can pull it off on somebody who has, you know, I like to sing different kinds of stuff. I’m not just a guy who likes

14:35

8

rock and roll. A lot of guys just likes pop. I’ve had a lot of different influences in my life, and I think that I’m

14:44

going to make a record that varies a little more, I’m sorry, the more people get a chance to hear that record, because I think there’s a lot of good stuff

Nestor Aparicio  14:53

on it, but how much over the past 18 years, or 15 years, or whatever it was from when you stopped playing? So you started playing? Did you just pick up a guitar and stroll?

15:03

I made an album in 85 and did a tour there that did very well. When I was there, I

8

Nestor Aparicio  15:10

felt like it wasn’t like you closeted music forever, though. No, not

15:14

at all. I just chose not to do it professionally. So I also and worked on stage and in the theater.

15:29

Kept my hand so that’s, you know, we should keep going, keep writing and keep working. You know, whether or not it cuts through, and whether you become successful at it, as I’ve done, come back into the public eye. And you know, can have a career doing it. I’ve never stopped singing. I’ve never stopped playing

Nestor Aparicio  15:56

8

with Sean Cass, your brother, right? Half brother, yeah. What’s he doing with himself? I just want to put it in the story, because I think people are interested. He’s

16:03

writing and producing in Los Angeles now. He’s got a movie that he’s written called he was

Nestor Aparicio  16:09

in general hospital for a while, wasn’t he? He was on a soap opera for a while. Yeah, that’s the last time I saw him, so I didn’t know how long ago it was.

16:18

Yeah, he’s done a lot of theater as well. He worked, he worked all of the places in theaters. A new movie stretch that he’s written and produced that’s going to be on. It’s a first draw and feature film for the USA Network, which will be on in

8

Nestor Aparicio  16:36

December, and he’s going to be acting it, or just producing, just wrote it, produced. Okay, now let’s see. I’m 23 so I am of the age that I saw Sean in concert in Baltimore. 23 You’re probably too young. And I remember that, no, but I remember the Partridge Family the last two seasons. I remember the last two seasons and then heavy reruns. So I was, I was a big rerun there coming to see the show, you know, and even younger Well, I mean, reruns were just, you know, it keeps everything alive. I mean, Gilligan’s Island, I went up in Bob, Denver, and those kind of people were signing autographs. And, like, there were still 10 year old kids there, you know, right?

David Cassidy  17:16

If you’re making records, those records aren’t available to people in reruns. You know, the people that know my songs and the material really know them from the first five years, people from the reruns don’t really know the songs

Nestor Aparicio  17:29

much I have the album. They

David Cassidy  17:31

8

weren’t available, though, after 75 or so,

Nestor Aparicio  17:34

right? You gotta go and get the parts coming, album, CD, get the

David Cassidy  17:38

CD, and you only get the greatest, what they what they turned the greatest hit? So people that are really into the and have been fanned a long time, I think on the early albums, I’m doing some of the early albums material the first time.

Nestor Aparicio  17:55

How many of the old songs are you doing?

8

David Cassidy  17:56

I don’t know. I’ve encountered them. I’m mixing a lot of the old with the new. I’m mixing. Is it like three, or is it like substantial eight to 10? I would say it’s more like 5050, oh, really, yeah, I’m doing like half and half. She does stuff like,

Nestor Aparicio  18:10

I’ll meet you halfway in Albuquerque, and right? Stuff like that. Oh, that’s cool. Yeah, I’m really looking forward to showing my girlfriend is like your biggest fan in the whole world. And actually, I must admit that I was a huge fan of yours in the late 70s when I saw the reruns. I, in fact, I embarrassed to say this, but I took the album cover and I I took it to my hair cutter when I was, like, 10 years old. I said, I said, I want a haircut just like David Cassidy,

David Cassidy  18:38

yeah, every person. How many times I’ve had people bring pictures of you cut my hair like you cut your hair. A guy who cut my hair is no longer cutting hair, and he created that hairstyle. Put it on me, and you’re grateful for it. You know, I dug it at the time, and I have very little to do with it work. I wanted to look like a rock.

Nestor Aparicio  19:09

8

Yeah, are you gonna hang out at the game on Sunday? Well,

David Cassidy  19:11

I’m gonna do my best. I don’t know what else they got planned for me. You know, I’d love to be able to stay and see the game.

Nestor Aparicio  19:17

We should hook up when you come into town. I could give you the whole lowdown on the stadium. I am the true connoisseur of that stadium. I spent the best years of my life, I’m

David Cassidy  19:27

sure, and being a baseball fan, it’s going to be an emotional afternoon, and one that I’m really proud I hope that I’m indeed going to be able to make it and be able to I’m not. I’m not going to be there tonight before I’m going to be doing a concert somewhere else. I don’t exactly remember why. Yeah, I don’t even have you fly or so now I hope I can make it five games time. Okay, man, take care. Great. Bye. Is it possible?