Partridge Family

Cmon get happy.com

Sept 26, 2013: News OK: Shirley Jones’ racy memoir debunks wholesome ‘Partridge Family’ image
In the 1970s, Shirley Jones emerged as one of the most wholesome and beloved TV moms in sitcom history as the bubbly, quasi-hippie Mrs. Partridge of “The Partridge Family.”

TV Guide 1971

The Partridge Family is an American television sitcom series about a widowed mother and her five children who embark on a music career. It ran from September 25, 1970, until March 23, 1974, on the ABC network as part of a Friday-night lineup, and had subsequent runs in syndication.

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.

Originally, the show was to star the real life musical family The Cowsills. However, they backed out when the producers decided to have Shirley Jones take over the role of the mother from the group's actual matriarch, Barbara Cowsill.

Jones almost became another famous TV mom: before The Partridge Family came along, she was offered the part of Carol Brady. “While the idea of playing the mother in The Brady Bunch was initially attractive to me, I turned it down because I didn’t want to be the mother taking the roast out of the oven and no doing much else,” she writes. However, accepting the part on The Partridge Family was a much easier decision. “I had no doubts at all about playing Shirley Partridge,” Jones writes. “First, because she was destined to become the first working mother on TV and I loved the script. Second, because working on the series would let me be an almost full-time mom and raise my kids.” (SOURCE: Parade)

The Partridge Family Album is unique among other Partridge records, in that it documents examples of the group's original sound. Had Farrell not discovered that David Cassidy could really sing, then the songs I'm On The Road and I Really Want To Know You would have been the standard for all the songs. In fact, the first experiment for David's vocal abilities can be found in To Be Lovers, where Cassidy is given one line to sing.
I Think I Love You is the song that put The Partridge Family on the map. Phenomenally successful, the song hit number one and stayed there for sixteen weeks. It was voted the number one song for 1970, and is still permeating the public consciousness to this day. The song features the harpsichord, which Farrell decided to utilize for The Partridge Family due to its light and cheerful sound. The chord structure is a classic example of Tony Romeo's songwriting style, which uses inverted chords to maintain a chromatic bass line. Larry Knechtel's harpsichord solo seems inspired by George Martin's piano solo on The Beatles' In My Life. Reportedly, as Knechtel was recording the solo, he broke into laughter which had to be edited out of the final mix. Cassidy's classic double-tracked vocal works extremely well in this song, no doubt the prime mover of its success.(SOURCE: C'mon Get Happy)

In 1994 Cassidy's memoir "C'mon, Get Happy...Fear and Loathing on the Partridge Family Bus (Warner Books ,out of print) detailed the "sexcapades," his alcohol and drug abuse, and his depression when he was no longer a star. He was most bitter about the money others made from his image. Though in the '90s, he collected residuals on cable channel Nickelodeon's Nick at Nite broadcasts of the show and royalties from Partridge Family records reissued on Razor & Tie.