Who played guitar in The Partridge Family?

David Cassidy was known for his portrayal of Keith Partridge on The Partridge Family. The show brought him fame and fortune as well as identification with “lightweight” pop music. However, pop was not the genre he was really interested in. Let’s find out what he had to say about the type of music he enjoyed as opposed to the type he was most associated with.

David Cassidy preferred these artists to The Partridge Family

In his memoir, C’mon, Get Happy – Fear and Loathing on the Partridge Family Bus,” Cassidy gives us a glimpse into how he began to play guitar. A friend of his, Steve Ross, was a guitarist in the very first garage band that Cassidy joined. Cassidy says Ross “turned me on to guitar.”

They would play The Beatles, blues, and Jimi Hendrix. “Personally, I progressed from being a real pop music fan like an average kid to a rhythm and blues music fan – I was looking for something deeper, more authentic – to a hard-core acid-rock, Hendrix, Clapton, Jeff Beck, Peter Green, John Mayall, Paul Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield type of fan.” Cassidy viewed the music he enjoyed as reflecting the social changes that were happening in society.

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Cassidy goes on to say despite playing “sweet, lightweight, mainstream pop music,” he did not enjoy that type of music at all. Ironically, he was interested in “the antithesis of mainstream pop.” His interests were blues and acid rock. He liked “being on the cutting edge of pop culture.”

David Cassidy and the concerts and parties he attended

While teens were buying records like “Yummy Yummy Yummy,” Cassidy and his friends were attending Hendrix and Cream concerts. “Hendrix was about as far from mainstream pop as you could get,” he opined. Hendrix would become more mainstream after his death.

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Cassidy discusses attending a party with Janis Joplin. He states “She was a big deal at the time … maybe late ’66 to ’67.” But she was there getting high like everybody else.” So while Cassidy portrayed a more conservative image on The Partridge Family and recorded pop music, his true interests were elsewhere.

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The public’s reaction to The Partridge Family’s music

Cassidy wasn’t a huge fan of bubblegum pop. However, the public embraced The Partridge Family’s bubblegum music. The Partridge Family released nine songs that reached the Billboard Hot 100. Of the nine songs, three were top ten hits, specifically “Doesn’t Somebody Want to be Wanted,” “I’ll Meet You Halfway,” and “I Think I Love You.” The latter song took the number one spot which peaked in 1970 for 19 weeks on the Billboard chart. Although Cassidy did not enjoy the type of music he sang, he still found success commercially.

Shirley Partridge ist eine Witwe mit 5 Kindern. Aus Geldmangel gründen die 6 eine Band, machen Musik und fahren mit einem bunten Bus von Auftritt zu Auftritt. Sie sind unheimlich erfolgreich. Neben Shirley Jones (Shirley Partridge) spielt David Cassidy als Keith Partridge eine der Hauptrollen. Diese Serie machte ihn in den 70er Jahren zum absoluten Teenstar. Auch die Musik war lange Zeit auf Platz 1 in den Charts.

In 1970, the Partridge Family was among the top-selling recording acts, not to mention one of the top-rated TV shows of its time. Either way, it made David Cassidy a successful teen idol until the show's cancellation in 1974. The Partridge Family consisted of Shirley Partridge (keyboards, vocals) and her five kids: Keith (lead vocalist and guitar), Laurie (keyboards, vocals), Danny (bass guitar, vocals), Chris (drums), and Tracy (tambourine). Rounding out the cast was their manager, Reuben Kincaid.

(CBS/AP) A mini "Partridge Family" reunion took place on Saturday in Atlantic City, N.J., when stars David Cassidy and Danny Bonaduce played a song onstage together. They said it was only the second time in 40 years they've done so.

Bonaduce, a Philadelphia DJ, played Cassidy's younger brother Danny on the hit 1970s TV series, but lip-synched and only pretended to play the bass guitar. After he did a standup comedy routine to open the show at Resorts Casino Hotel, Cassidy got him to play "Doesn't Somebody Want to Be Wanted." Bonaduce learned the song for real when they played it together in suburban Philadelphia last October.

Pictures: David Cassidy

"We did it five, six months ago," Cassidy told The Associated Press. "He learned it - and then he put the bass away and didn't touch it. I know him."

"That's not true," Bonaduce insisted. "I just dusted it the other day."

"The Partridge Family" centered on a musical family, lead by actress Shirley Jones, playing infectious, hook-laden pop. Jones and Cassidy were the only ones who really sang. The other actors lip-synched and pretended to play their instruments. 

Since the show ended, Cassidy has enjoyed a long show biz career, which included a solo sing stint during his teen idol phase, a starring role in the police series "David Cassidy: Man Undercover," and a critically acclaimed role on Broadway in "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" in 1982.

Most recently, the 60-year-old was on NBC's "The Celebrity Apprentice," where he was the first contestant to be fired by Donald Trump.

Bonaduce is a radio personality on Philadelphia station WYSP and has starred on several reality shows. He's engaged in celebrity boxing and wrestling matches that included bouts against former "Brady Bunch" actors and retired baseball player Jose Canseco.

Last fall, Cassidy, who has been touring regularly, told Bonaduce, "It's time you learned how to play the Partridge Family hits." Actually, he dared him.

"He knows I don't take dares lightly," Bonaduce said.

So he learned the five or so notes from the song, practiced a few times, and pulled it off. Then he put the red-and-white bass in its case and forgot about it.

"I have these guitars that I kind of collect," he said. "They're in the house so it looks like a musician lives there."

With the 51-year-old only an hour away from Atlantic City, Cassidy has requested that he join him on stage for Saturday night's show.

"It's an easy song to play, but I don't know how to read music," Bonaduce said. "I asked a guy in the band, 'What the ... do these things mean? He said, "This means 'repeat, this means pause' and so on. When I realized I was going to get through it without screwing it up, I had a great time."

Introducing the song, Bonaduce asked the crowd, "You wanna see something nobody has ever seen before? Me, plugging in a bass guitar!"

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First published on April 11, 2011 / 2:44 PM

© 2011 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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