The Partridge Family – The Partridge Family Sound Magazine

When my college roommate Danny and I were absolutely record-crazy, we were hot for just about anything we could remember fondly from our youth. Memories of songs like “Indiana Wants Me,” “Let Me,” “Dirty Water” and more led us to rifle through bins of 45s at thrift stores and city missions, as well as our beloved Desert Shore Records, looking for the sounds of our youth. Some of it was pure pop perfection, some of it was pure pop garbage. We were also nostalgic for the TV shows we had grown up with – but in those days, the only way to see such things was in our memories. Even if we’d had cable, which we didn’t until our final year, there were far fewer channels and far less of a chance that something like Rocky and Bullwinkle or The Partridge Family would have been in the rotation.

In that state of mind, and kind of proudly wearing the brand of being very retro in tastes, we embraced the best of the ’60s and early ’70s, music that seemed to our peers to be terribly outdated when it wasn’t even 10 years old. People thought we were our own grandparents because we were such big fans of The Beatles – music that then was not much more than 15 years old at the oldest. It was a different time – music changed so dramatically in a year or two.

And the idea of seriously listening to a Partridge Family album? Unthinkable.

People think I’m kidding when I say this is one of the finest pop albums of all time. I am not kidding.

I know the complaints. They weren’t a real band, and were a rip-off of the Cowsills (who did really play). It was all manufactured for a teeny-bopper TV show. Yep. They didn’t play their own instruments, at all. Neither did The Beach Boys, The Mamas and the Papas, or nearly any of the classic pop groups of the ’60s. They didn’t write their own songs. Nope, hardly anybody did in the ’60s, even after The Beatles hit.

So, musically, what we really have here is a David Cassidy album, with some additional vocals by Shirley Jones. The instruments are all session players, largely members of the “Wrecking Crew.” The songwriting is largely by the album’s producer, Wes Farrell, with some contributions by Paul Anka, Rupert Holmes, Bobby Hart, and three songs by Tony Romeo. I’m stunned to be learning at this late date that Romeo, a huge contributor to The Partridge Family, The Cowsills, Lou Christie, Richard Harris and more, was from Watervliet, NY, very close to my old stomping grounds.

These songs are perfectly crafted, start to finish, with the pacing and build of a perfect pop album. Hey, this made number 9 on the US Billboard album charts, when it was released in 1971. I got my copy sometime in the great first wave of record collecting, so maybe 1979 or 1980. And I treasure this so much that somewhere along the line, I even bought a second, better quality copy, which is also a white label promo copy.