Could It Be Forever? My Story (9 page)

Susan and I hung out a lot and became friends. She confided in me about her life, I confided in her about mine. I met her family. She had depth and was a kind soul. There had been a cool song out by The Buckinghams in 1966 that had the line, ‘Susan, looks like I’m losin’, I’m losin’ my mind.’ So every time I called her, for many years, I’d start by singing that line.

We filmed
The Partridge Family
pilot in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. I remember when they showed us the outfits they had designed for us – these ridiculous velvet suits. I was a guy who lived like a hippie in Laurel Canyon. How could I possibly wear these costumes? But I put them on like they asked me to and told myself the pilot would probably never lead to anything anyway. In Hollywood they shoot countless pilots that never actually become TV series.

In the pilot, Shirley, playing a widow, hears a racket in the garage one day. It’s her five wholesome but high-spirited kids, who are forming a band. The kids decide to get her to join their band. In reality The Cowsills, consisting of a mother and her six children, had, in 1967 and 1968, recorded such hits as
Indian Lake
,
Poor Baby
,
and
The Rain, the Park and the Other Things.
In the proposed show, the family records a number. The smart-aleck middle son (played by Danny Bonaduce) forces a hapless agent (Dave Madden) to listen to their music by shoving a tape recorder under his bathroom stall. Bernard Slade, the
creator of the show, thought that scene was so funny that it helped to make the pilot a success.

The agent then books the family for a show in Las Vegas. They drive there in a bus that they’ve painted in psychedelic colours, don their stunning velvet suits, and, after uplifting words from Mom to get them over their stage fright, proceed to wow the crowd. Everyone loves their music. They’re a hit.

The proposed series was expected to track the family’s adventures in show business as well as the kids’ antics offstage. For me, the biggest thrill of making the pilot was seeing Las Vegas for the first time in my life, although I was bummed out that they wouldn’t let me in the casinos because I was under 21.

At the time, I felt that even if the series did become a reality, I didn’t see how it could do much for me. After all, I wasn’t the star of it. Shirley had top billing; I was just one of the kids. And in scenes with six of us around a dinner table, I figured we’d each get a line or two. After the various dramatic guest shots I’d done, the part seemed like a real comedown. I mean, how much could an actor do with a line like, ‘Hi, Mom, I’m home from school’ or ‘Please pass the milk’?

But we soon got word that ABC had decided to buy the show. It would air Friday nights at 8.30 p.m. Screen Gems didn’t offer me a great deal of money for doing it – just $600 a week – but I accepted that. I had heard they didn’t pay anyone much money. Three years earlier they had hired The Monkees for $400 a week apiece. I
figured at least I’d have steady work for a while. Even if the series just lasted 13 weeks, it would mean I’d be able to hold on to the house I had just bought.

If
The Partridge Family
show clicked, I’d be contractually obliged to do it for seven years, but I’d had too many disappointments to dare assume the show was going to be a hit. This contract also had something in there about the studio owning the rights to my name, voice, likeness and blah, blah, blah. I couldn’t really imagine why they’d want those rights. I was just some struggling, unknown actor.

In the summer of 1970, things felt really fine. I had a job. I was making a good living. I had a nice house. My career was just about to break. It was kind of all set up for me. ABC was beginning to crank up the publicity machine. Although I hadn’t yet filtered into the consciousness of mainstream America, my face was starting to appear in teen magazines.

Sam Hyman and Steve Ross, another old friend from garage-band days, planned a day for us to all hang out and get back to nature up at Tuna Canyon in Malibu. Steve arrived at the house around 5 a.m. with a couple of girls he knew. They brought peyote buttons. We drank them in blended shakes that tasted awful, really nauseating. In fact, I threw up in Venice before we got to Tuna Canyon.

We drove out there in my 1968 Mustang. There was nothing around the canyon – maybe four homes. The area was a wilderness. We parked on Tuna Canyon Road and
hiked up into the mountains. We stripped down to our underwear. Actually, I was in a little loin cloth I made specifically for the occasion. I kept referring to myself as ‘Soaring Eagle’, saying things like, ‘Soaring Eagle see such and such’ and ‘Soaring Eagle want to fly.’ I called Sam ‘Running Deer’. Steve was ‘Bircher Boots’ because he was wearing these black military boots that made me think of the right-wing John Birch Society.

We were there for six hours, from about 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. My nervous system was tumbling but it made me feel really good. It was a magnificent day: blue sky, 75 degrees, perfect. We’d brought a joint with us and enjoyed that. We were just all hanging together. It was simply an experience of being in tune with nature, feeling like a wild animal. We barely noticed it when the girls left, saying that their throats were parched and they had to go find some water.

Sam, Steve and I were sunning ourselves, with our clothes lying nearby on some rocks, when suddenly we heard this whirling and this loud – really loud – amplified voice from above us.

‘Dave, Sam and Steve. Go back to the road. We are the sheriffs.’

We looked up and there was a whirlybird. Since the cops were always hassling young people in those days, instinctively we started running, but how do you escape from a helicopter? We were stoned and confused. Our mouths felt like they were filled with camel dung. We hadn’t had any water in God knows how many hours.
We couldn’t find the girls. One minute we were in paradise, the next it was like
Apocalypse Now
.

We got our clothes together.

‘Can you handle it?’ Sam asked me. His eyes were like saucers.

‘I can handle it,’ I said, but I could barely get the words out.

Our hearts were pounding. We hiked maybe a mile and a half back to the road and we heard: ‘This is one Adam-12. I have three Caucasian males . . .’ Cops were tearing my car apart. They had already questioned the girls, who had by this point wandered back to the car. They looked scared and were worried that they’d blown it by giving the cops our names.

Those cops were classic – butch haircuts, military swagger. And to them we were just some freaky hippie scum. They pulled everything out of my car: the seats, the floor mats, the spare tyre, my guitar. They spent hours looking for some sign of drugs saying, ‘We know you’ve been smoking pot. We can see it in your eyes.’ I was shaking. All I could think of was my manager. How would I be able to explain being busted for drugs to Ruth? My whole career would fall apart because there was a morals clause in my contract. I got really scared. All I could think was,
I could easily lose my job. Screen Gems will hire someone else to play Keith Partridge in a second
. This was a lot more serious than getting kicked out of some high school.

The cops found no drugs in the car, nothing stronger
than my bottles of aspirin and vitamins. They let us go with just a ticket for illegal parking. I was still shaking. I was in no shape to drive home. And once I got there, I was too wired to sleep for almost two days.

T
he good folks at Screen Gems anticipated making money not just from the TV show but from recordings, which would be released on Bell Records, an offshoot of Columbia Pictures and Screen Gems, and whatever other
Partridge Family
-related items teenagers could be persuaded to buy. The producers hoped
The Partridge Family
might prove as popular with TV viewers as
The Monkees
had, and thus generate comparable sales of albums and other merchandise. In reality,
The Partridge Family
, in terms of audience appeal and merchandising success, far surpassed
The Monkees
.

Needless to say, I didn’t see any of this coming. I never dreamed how it might impact on me. And, of course, I had
no aspirations – much less expectations – of becoming a recording artist. I just thought of myself as an actor when I signed to do the show. In fact, when we filmed
The Partridge Family
pilot, which included a couple of musical numbers, I didn’t actually sing. Like the other cast members, I simply lip-synched to tracks that had been pre-recorded by a group of highly respected studio musicians and singers. As it turned out, however, those would be the only Partridge Family recordings on which I didn’t sing.

Ruth was eager to have Shirley and me participate in the making of all Partridge Family recordings and get a share of whatever profits they might generate. She telephoned Wes Farrell, who had been selected by the record company and the studio to produce The Partridge Family records. Ruth insisted, ‘You guys don’t know this, but David is actually a very good singer. He sang on Broadway, he played in rock and roll bands in high school. He can give you just what you need.’

The head of Bell Records, Larry Uttal, could hardly have cared whether I sang or not. His attitude was always, ‘We don’t need artists. We just need good producers.
They’re
the ones who create hit records.’ To him a singer was just someone to be used. I always felt as if he treated me with a certain contempt, and he’s one of the few people from
those days I still loathe. But the decision to use me or not was Wes Farrell’s.

Screen Gems had turned over the recordings part of the deal to Bell Records. Unbeknownst to me, Bell in turn had signed a contract with Farrell giving him long-term control of The Partridge Family recordings, including the rights to produce records featuring any or all members of
The
Partridge Family
cast. Farrell already ‘owned’ me before I even met with him. I was naïve about the business.

It was Farrell who created The Partridge Family’s sound. He selected the songwriters, the songs (some of which he
wrote himself) and put the studio musicians and singers together. He had had such 60s successes as
Come a Little Bit Closer
, a 1964 hit for Jay and the Americans,
Hang on Sloopy
, a 1965 hit for the McCoys,
Let’s Lock the Door (and Throw Away the Key
), a 1965 hit for Jay and the Americans and
Come on Down to My Boat
, a 1967 hit for Every Mother’s Son. He’d also written
Boys
, which was recorded by the Beatles as well as The Shirelles. He’d produced records for Johnny Maestro and the Brooklyn Bridge and The Cowsills, which is, I’m sure, why Larry Uttal hired him. A no-brainer, right?

Farrell said I sounded great, adding, ‘We’ll be doing a recording session in two weeks. I’ll give you the lyrics beforehand so you can learn them.’

We recorded most of The Partridge Family songs at Western Studio Two, where all those hits by the Beach Boys, Sonny & Cher
and The Mamas & the Papas were cut.

The Partridge Family songs were chosen by Wes and Uttal and presented to me in batches. In the very beginning I would be given lyric sheets and a cassette, a piano player would come and play the tunes, then I would go away for a couple of hours and learn them. Then it became clear that I didn’t need that much time. I could learn the songs in a second. We’d record three or four songs at each session, depending upon their complexity. Every one was a live vocal in the vocal booth at Western Two. At 7.10 p.m. we’d wrap shooting
The Partridge Family
and I’d hop in my car, drive over the hill and they’d have a sandwich and water or a Coke or 7 Up waiting for me. Then I would go in the studio,
where Wes was already working with the band, putting the first arrangement together.

I worked all night, every night. I would sing live on every track. The first step was to record the rhythm section and then the song with a lead vocal. Then the background singers would come in after the tracks were done and then the sweetening, the strings and horns. The background singers, John Bahler, his brother Tom and Jackie Ward, were some of the most successful commercial singers in the business. John Bahler did all of the vocal arranging. He was amazing.

I can’t say I didn’t like any of the finished songs, but I preferred the rawness of just the rhythm section and myself singing the song. But I understand that they were more commercial records with the great horns and strings and the background vocals.

Among the few songs we recorded at the very first session was
I Think I Love You
. When they played that back in the studio, it was the first time I’d ever heard a vocal of mine on tape. I was happy that Farrell was using me as the group’s lead singer. He had come up with songs that were real pop showcases for me.

Contractually, Shirley had to be on every track, so she recorded but rarely did we mix her in. She’d overdub her parts for a whole album in a single session and they’d put in a little blip of her going, ‘do do do do do do, I think I love you’. She is on the records, but you never actually hear her. It was all background singer Jackie Ward. Shirley didn’t care at the time, though I think she cares now, when people think that’s her voice.