The tragedy of David Cassidy
I'm not trying to be hipper than thou, here, I'm really not. But although David Cassidy's death is significant to my generation -- after all, he was my generation's manufactured teen idol, and in fact, one of the first really obvious ones -- I'm not in this huge mourning thing, like my childhood died or whatever. Frankly, I was more upset when Adam West died. Now that was a first crush. I'm just sad about David Cassidy, but it's not why you think.
See, as a little girl growing up in the 60s, when lots of groundbreaking music was happening, I was fortunate to have the "big brother." You know, the older sibling who had albums that you not-so-secretly listened to while all your friends were listening to the official teeny bopper music. So I listened intently while my brother Matt was explaining to me what a zeppelin was, and why, therefore,"Led Zeppelin" was an ironic name for a musical group. "Because they're heavy, get it?" Thank you, Matt, I get it. And then he dropped the needle on "Good Times Bad Times" and I never settled for dreck again. By the time I was eight, I'd memorized every groove and lyric on his copy of Sgt. Pepper ("hey, they put all the words to their songs here!") and I still know not only all the Rolling Stones singles, but their B-Sides. (Quick: what's the B-Side to "Satisfaction"? Why, it's "The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man," to this day one of my favorite snotty punkass beatdowns.) Band names had to be explained all the time. "Matt, why is this band called Deep Purple?" "It just is. Now Hush and listen to the music."
But, I have to admit, as a TV show, the Partridge Family was a fun, good show. It was better than the Brady Bunch because it was more realistic. The Partridges, despite their cleverness and good looks, weren't the most popular kids at their school. The Partridge Family wasn't even a rock and roll band -- look at their venues. They were a lounge act. Their manager, who didn't care about the music, hustled his ass for them, nevertheless. Mr. Kincaid took care of his client. Shirley was, first and foremost, a great single mom who wasn't perfect but loved her kids and steered them as best she could and did it all with humor. Laurie Partridge's feminism was questioning and precise, unlike Maricia Brady's issue-of-the-week. Danny was the Alex Keaton of the bunch, as Reuben Kincaid's apprentice and sidekick he was the ruthless negotiator with a child's heart of gold. Chris and Tracy were basically uninteresting wallpaper, in fact, had the fanzines not told us about the new kid playing Chris, we never would have noticed that the brown haired kid was replaced with a blue eyed blond. But still, this was a watchable contrast to those damn Brady kids: all of whom were the most popular in school, never had any money problems, (shit, they could afford a live-in maid!) and went on spectacular vacations. The Partridges were always on the road, that bus broke down constantly, they played those disaster gigs from hell (and Shirley/Mom kept them professional about it), and yes, they were relatable.
On top of all that Keith Partridge, the lead singer, the rock and roll star, who, despite that he was a "guy in a band," had trouble getting dates for cryin' out loud. His character was, fundamentally, a dork. But the guy who played him, David Cassidy, was the guy Hollywood decided that pre-adolescent me was supposed to love.
Kathy Werbenjager (my elementary school's queen bee, name changed to protect the guilty), the self-appointed arbiter of taste for my 4th Grade class, saw to it that we had everything we needed to be a part of this. She had a subscription to Tiger Beat, for cryin' out loud, and if we wanted to hang with her, we needed our own copies of the four issues that had the four pieces of the eventual gigantic wall poster of David Cassidy in it. Tiger Beat was telling us what cute boys we were needing to be aware of: Cassidy, Donny Osmond, Bobby Sherman. We'd already passed the Cowsills (the inspiration for the Partridges), but there was the upcoming DeFranco Family, who were going to be a real-life Partridge Family. If we wanted to hang with Kathy Werbenjager and her posse of cool girls, we needed to be Up To Date on all of this. Yes, I bought all this fame that Charles Laufer sold me, and the LA Times noted the staff of Laufer's mags (including Tiger Beat, FaVE! and the "black" version, Right ON!) "covered every move by Cassidy... producing about 15 David Cassidy stories a
month and sentences that almost always end with an exclamation mark (David ordered a steak!)" Laufer had once told the NYT, "Let's face it, we're in the Little Girl business."
I went along with it, but I didn't really have a crush on David Cassidy. I'm not trying to be cool here. As I rack my memories of that time (while scrolling past many of my friends on Facebook reminiscing today about their love for David Cassidy), I honestly don't remember having that burning crush feeling for him, despite those "hey girl" cover photos of him on stacks of back issues of Tiger Beat Spectacular. I fell asleep dreaming more of being torn between George Harrison and Mick Jagger. But where were they in all this? Why weren't they in the pages of Tiger Beat or 16 Magazine? I had just finished memorizing every song on "Let It Bleed" (which I also pilfered from Matt's collection) and was anxious to have my own record that I found myself, that Matt didn't have to "lend" me. Why wasn't there a big review of "Sticky Fingers" in the April 1971 issue of FAVE! ? I wanted to return the favor to Matt and find some music I could show to him.
So, when David (no last name needed, we all knew who David Cassidy was), released his first solo single, "Cherish", upon Tiger Beat editor Ann Moses' recommendation, I had to grab some babysitting money, get somebody to drive me to the record store at Park Forest Plaza and get it. I got home from the record store, plopped the 45 on my record player, and ......... what? Jesus, even the Osmonds rocked harder than this.
That's when I realized, though I couldn't verbalize it then, that this wasn't about the music. Sheryl Garrett so pointedly observed this very thing in her classic 1984 essay "Teenage Dreams" where she writes about fangirl obsession, citing her memories of being a Bay City Rollers fangirl. "Part of the appeal is the desire for comradeship," Garrett wrote, describing being part of the singing, screaming busloads of girls all wearing tartan on the way to a concert. "With the Rollers at least, many became involved not because they particularly liked the music, but because they didn't want to miss out. " (Emphasis mine. The whole essay is worth your time: Garrett nails the teeny bopper fangirl culture with love and precision, with the academic hindsight that becomes insight. In fact, her whole collection of her and others' writing about women in pop is a must-read. )
"Cherish" was a song the Lettermen covered, that's how pablum it was. Oh, you look back on it now, yeah, they had the the best songwriters, and top production work and they brought in the Wrecking Crew, but this was no "Brown Sugar" or "Can't You Hear Me Knocking." And it's not like I wasn't into pop music (after all, the first full length album I bought with my own money was Elton John's "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" -- an album I can still listen to start to end and revel in its greatness) but this was ridiculous. I stopped buying Tiger Beat that month. Oh, I still watched The Partridge Family -- it was a good show -- but dammit, David, musically you lost me. And ever since those days I would watch Matt's band practice in the carport (no, we didn't even have a garage!) it was always about the music, and "Cherish" was the moment prepubescent me realized this.
And that's the sad thing about David Cassidy: While he spent his youth playing in garage bands and listening to the same stuff Matt was listening to, his step mom and dad had industry connections and helped him on the fast track to stardom, which usually isn't a bad thing. They genuinely thought they were doing him a favor. But while the work was good, he didn't want to be a teen idol. He wanted to be Jimi Hendrix. He wanted to be the kind of guy whose music got reviewed in Creem, not promoted in Tiger Beat. He wanted to make the kind of records that big brothers told their little sisters about, not the kind that 4th grade queen bees made you listen to if you wanted to be part of the cool girls' club. If you don't believe me, read his book. And remember that people happy with their career don't generally become bankrupt alcoholics by the time they hit 30.
So this is why David Cassidy's death is sad to me. Sure, like Adam West, he accepted his branding in life and went on tour and sang his hits. But Adam West didn't seem to have regretted that post-Batman, he'd always be Batman, no matter what. Adam West, my first great crush, appeared to have left this world happy with the mark he'd left on it, glad to have brought smiles and fun to people's lives, and genuinely had fun with who he was and what he accomplished. David Cassidy, on the other hand, did the music industry equivalent of peaking in high school, and like many of those who did peak in high school, regretted not being able to ever shake that. I don't know anybody who picked up a guitar and wanted to be in a band because of David Cassidy. He wasn't my first great crush and he probably didn't give a crap whether or not he was my or anybody's first great crush. He wanted to be somebody's first great musical crush, like Mick Jagger and George Harrison were mine. And he knew he wasn't ever going to be. That he suffered from dementia at the end is tragic enough, but that he never got to do what he really wanted to do, despite what everybody else called "a success," is the true tragedy of David Cassidy.
I stumbled upon this video last night, of David Cassidy jamming with some top notch musicians in BB King's club -- a far cry from those stadiums he packed, and it cheered me up. He's playing lead guitar, he's wearing a plain white shirt and jeans, and he looks comfortable and downright happy. There's a more Las Vegas style version of him doing this, but I like this more. It's the David Cassidy that I bet Matt (who passed on almost 20 years ago) and I could agree on, a David Cassidy covering Deep Purple and, bless him, covering "Hush" well and making it his own. If there's a Heaven, it's the David Cassidy I hope is sidling up to Jimi and asking for guitar tips. And, being Heaven, Hendrix smiles at him, tells him to plug in, calls Keith Moon over to provide a beat, and doesn't snub Davy Jones when he turns up with a tambourine and asks "Can I play too?"
And my big brother is smiling down at me and saying, "Nice find, Veronica."
Rest well, David.
See, as a little girl growing up in the 60s, when lots of groundbreaking music was happening, I was fortunate to have the "big brother." You know, the older sibling who had albums that you not-so-secretly listened to while all your friends were listening to the official teeny bopper music. So I listened intently while my brother Matt was explaining to me what a zeppelin was, and why, therefore,"Led Zeppelin" was an ironic name for a musical group. "Because they're heavy, get it?" Thank you, Matt, I get it. And then he dropped the needle on "Good Times Bad Times" and I never settled for dreck again. By the time I was eight, I'd memorized every groove and lyric on his copy of Sgt. Pepper ("hey, they put all the words to their songs here!") and I still know not only all the Rolling Stones singles, but their B-Sides. (Quick: what's the B-Side to "Satisfaction"? Why, it's "The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man," to this day one of my favorite snotty punkass beatdowns.) Band names had to be explained all the time. "Matt, why is this band called Deep Purple?" "It just is. Now Hush and listen to the music."
But, I have to admit, as a TV show, the Partridge Family was a fun, good show. It was better than the Brady Bunch because it was more realistic. The Partridges, despite their cleverness and good looks, weren't the most popular kids at their school. The Partridge Family wasn't even a rock and roll band -- look at their venues. They were a lounge act. Their manager, who didn't care about the music, hustled his ass for them, nevertheless. Mr. Kincaid took care of his client. Shirley was, first and foremost, a great single mom who wasn't perfect but loved her kids and steered them as best she could and did it all with humor. Laurie Partridge's feminism was questioning and precise, unlike Maricia Brady's issue-of-the-week. Danny was the Alex Keaton of the bunch, as Reuben Kincaid's apprentice and sidekick he was the ruthless negotiator with a child's heart of gold. Chris and Tracy were basically uninteresting wallpaper, in fact, had the fanzines not told us about the new kid playing Chris, we never would have noticed that the brown haired kid was replaced with a blue eyed blond. But still, this was a watchable contrast to those damn Brady kids: all of whom were the most popular in school, never had any money problems, (shit, they could afford a live-in maid!) and went on spectacular vacations. The Partridges were always on the road, that bus broke down constantly, they played those disaster gigs from hell (and Shirley/Mom kept them professional about it), and yes, they were relatable.
On top of all that Keith Partridge, the lead singer, the rock and roll star, who, despite that he was a "guy in a band," had trouble getting dates for cryin' out loud. His character was, fundamentally, a dork. But the guy who played him, David Cassidy, was the guy Hollywood decided that pre-adolescent me was supposed to love.
Kathy Werbenjager (my elementary school's queen bee, name changed to protect the guilty), the self-appointed arbiter of taste for my 4th Grade class, saw to it that we had everything we needed to be a part of this. She had a subscription to Tiger Beat, for cryin' out loud, and if we wanted to hang with her, we needed our own copies of the four issues that had the four pieces of the eventual gigantic wall poster of David Cassidy in it. Tiger Beat was telling us what cute boys we were needing to be aware of: Cassidy, Donny Osmond, Bobby Sherman. We'd already passed the Cowsills (the inspiration for the Partridges), but there was the upcoming DeFranco Family, who were going to be a real-life Partridge Family. If we wanted to hang with Kathy Werbenjager and her posse of cool girls, we needed to be Up To Date on all of this. Yes, I bought all this fame that Charles Laufer sold me, and the LA Times noted the staff of Laufer's mags (including Tiger Beat, FaVE! and the "black" version, Right ON!) "covered every move by Cassidy... producing about 15 David Cassidy stories a
month and sentences that almost always end with an exclamation mark (David ordered a steak!)" Laufer had once told the NYT, "Let's face it, we're in the Little Girl business."
I went along with it, but I didn't really have a crush on David Cassidy. I'm not trying to be cool here. As I rack my memories of that time (while scrolling past many of my friends on Facebook reminiscing today about their love for David Cassidy), I honestly don't remember having that burning crush feeling for him, despite those "hey girl" cover photos of him on stacks of back issues of Tiger Beat Spectacular. I fell asleep dreaming more of being torn between George Harrison and Mick Jagger. But where were they in all this? Why weren't they in the pages of Tiger Beat or 16 Magazine? I had just finished memorizing every song on "Let It Bleed" (which I also pilfered from Matt's collection) and was anxious to have my own record that I found myself, that Matt didn't have to "lend" me. Why wasn't there a big review of "Sticky Fingers" in the April 1971 issue of FAVE! ? I wanted to return the favor to Matt and find some music I could show to him.
So, when David (no last name needed, we all knew who David Cassidy was), released his first solo single, "Cherish", upon Tiger Beat editor Ann Moses' recommendation, I had to grab some babysitting money, get somebody to drive me to the record store at Park Forest Plaza and get it. I got home from the record store, plopped the 45 on my record player, and ......... what? Jesus, even the Osmonds rocked harder than this.
That's when I realized, though I couldn't verbalize it then, that this wasn't about the music. Sheryl Garrett so pointedly observed this very thing in her classic 1984 essay "Teenage Dreams" where she writes about fangirl obsession, citing her memories of being a Bay City Rollers fangirl. "Part of the appeal is the desire for comradeship," Garrett wrote, describing being part of the singing, screaming busloads of girls all wearing tartan on the way to a concert. "With the Rollers at least, many became involved not because they particularly liked the music, but because they didn't want to miss out. " (Emphasis mine. The whole essay is worth your time: Garrett nails the teeny bopper fangirl culture with love and precision, with the academic hindsight that becomes insight. In fact, her whole collection of her and others' writing about women in pop is a must-read. )
"Cherish" was a song the Lettermen covered, that's how pablum it was. Oh, you look back on it now, yeah, they had the the best songwriters, and top production work and they brought in the Wrecking Crew, but this was no "Brown Sugar" or "Can't You Hear Me Knocking." And it's not like I wasn't into pop music (after all, the first full length album I bought with my own money was Elton John's "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" -- an album I can still listen to start to end and revel in its greatness) but this was ridiculous. I stopped buying Tiger Beat that month. Oh, I still watched The Partridge Family -- it was a good show -- but dammit, David, musically you lost me. And ever since those days I would watch Matt's band practice in the carport (no, we didn't even have a garage!) it was always about the music, and "Cherish" was the moment prepubescent me realized this.
And that's the sad thing about David Cassidy: While he spent his youth playing in garage bands and listening to the same stuff Matt was listening to, his step mom and dad had industry connections and helped him on the fast track to stardom, which usually isn't a bad thing. They genuinely thought they were doing him a favor. But while the work was good, he didn't want to be a teen idol. He wanted to be Jimi Hendrix. He wanted to be the kind of guy whose music got reviewed in Creem, not promoted in Tiger Beat. He wanted to make the kind of records that big brothers told their little sisters about, not the kind that 4th grade queen bees made you listen to if you wanted to be part of the cool girls' club. If you don't believe me, read his book. And remember that people happy with their career don't generally become bankrupt alcoholics by the time they hit 30.
So this is why David Cassidy's death is sad to me. Sure, like Adam West, he accepted his branding in life and went on tour and sang his hits. But Adam West didn't seem to have regretted that post-Batman, he'd always be Batman, no matter what. Adam West, my first great crush, appeared to have left this world happy with the mark he'd left on it, glad to have brought smiles and fun to people's lives, and genuinely had fun with who he was and what he accomplished. David Cassidy, on the other hand, did the music industry equivalent of peaking in high school, and like many of those who did peak in high school, regretted not being able to ever shake that. I don't know anybody who picked up a guitar and wanted to be in a band because of David Cassidy. He wasn't my first great crush and he probably didn't give a crap whether or not he was my or anybody's first great crush. He wanted to be somebody's first great musical crush, like Mick Jagger and George Harrison were mine. And he knew he wasn't ever going to be. That he suffered from dementia at the end is tragic enough, but that he never got to do what he really wanted to do, despite what everybody else called "a success," is the true tragedy of David Cassidy.
I stumbled upon this video last night, of David Cassidy jamming with some top notch musicians in BB King's club -- a far cry from those stadiums he packed, and it cheered me up. He's playing lead guitar, he's wearing a plain white shirt and jeans, and he looks comfortable and downright happy. There's a more Las Vegas style version of him doing this, but I like this more. It's the David Cassidy that I bet Matt (who passed on almost 20 years ago) and I could agree on, a David Cassidy covering Deep Purple and, bless him, covering "Hush" well and making it his own. If there's a Heaven, it's the David Cassidy I hope is sidling up to Jimi and asking for guitar tips. And, being Heaven, Hendrix smiles at him, tells him to plug in, calls Keith Moon over to provide a beat, and doesn't snub Davy Jones when he turns up with a tambourine and asks "Can I play too?"
And my big brother is smiling down at me and saying, "Nice find, Veronica."
Rest well, David.
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