V01-T08b Come On Get Happy

.....What song would be introduced with an interstitial about selling your soul to become a famous musician?

Volume 1: THE PITCHFORK APPROACH, track 8b

• 01:05 "COME ON GET HAPPY" (Danny Janssen, Wes Farrell)
• performed by The Partridge Family (i.e., David Cassidy, Shirley Jones and various session musicians)
• original source: television theme song [second version from seasons 2-4, 1971-1974]
• and my source: CD GREATEST HITS Arista ARCD-8604 (US) 1989

.....By several accounts the television series "The Partridge Family" was clearly inspired by the real-life story of the Cowsills, a family of teens and pre-teens who charted in the late 1960's with a number of pop and light rock songs. But the project was only approved so that it could be a vehicle for a Broadway singer, Shirley Jones, when Hollywood could no longer pay for movies made from Broadway musicals (blame "Finian's Rainbow"). Her stepson, David Cassidy got the part of her on-screen son and soon became a teen heartthrob. It was in later years that the public learned that his spin-off solo career was not entirely a product of the producers' conniving. Even as a teen, Cassidy's real objective was to be a rock musician and saw the TV series as a means to that end, despite the difference in musical styles. He believed that once he had a platform from which to be heard that he could create his own music. It wasn't until the show (and concurrent record album projects) had begun production that he learned that the music and vocals were to be recorded by anonymous professionals and that the cast would merely lip-synch on the show. He convinced the music director and producer that he could genuinely sing (he could, for their purposes, and would get better with experience) and began recording his own vocals, if not his own songs. When he felt he had written enough material for a solo act, he fought to leave the show. Eventually he discovered that although the show created a built-in audience, it was a built-in audience for The Partridge Family. After spending years playing music he didn't care about in order to play the music he loved, he had alienated the very audiences who would have listened to him and cultivated audiences who only wanted something else. Welcome to hell.

.....Having added a kitsch theme song to the mix I had opened a porthole in a submarine as far as the compilation tape was concerned.