Well the TV show was a hit and I think a good deal of their songs charted so you can't say they weren't successful.
As a kid, I watched the TV series on its original run and our family had a couple of the albums. I haven’t seen the series in decades, so I really can’t comment how I feel about it now. As far as the music goes, I think producer Wes Ferrell did an outstanding job using “The Wrecking Crew” to create a particular sound aimed at a MOR TV audience, and ended up producing a number of well crafted pop songs and singles. It helped that David Cassidy turned out to have an excellent singing voice.
Mrs Partridge......Yeah, I noticed her. The show was as good as most other shows aimed at the same audience, and you had to leave logic out for many of the situations, but we enjoyed it.
Shirley Jones was beautiful and very talented. A few of the fondest memories of my youth was being in two plays- Oklahoma! and The Music Man. Those movies still mean a lot to me and Shirley Jones was in both.
I Woke Up This Morning is my fav. big hit from The Partridge Family. I saw the show as reruns long ago and usually liked the singing parts best. I always wanted a bus like they had on the show.
Speaking of bookings and family bands, I discovered this interesting snippet from an Atlantic City, NJ newspaper published in late June, 1971, while perusing concertarchives.org. Note that from July 5th through 10th, The Cowsills had a 6-night gig with The Allman Brothers. The Allman Brothers! Whose now-iconic live LP At Fillmore East would hit record store shelves on that July 6th. I’m kind of curious as to which group served as the opening act (seriously!). One can only imagine what those sound check/pre-show backstage hangs must’ve been like.
Contrary to what people thought of the legitimacy of the musicianship of the cast, David Cassidy was outstanding guitar player it was made evident on the pilot episode which shows Keith riffing a on Fender strat in the garage albeit briefly.. after that we never saw something like that on show again
In Joey Green's PF book, Dave Madden says the exact same thing. He says it's obvious Reuben had no idea what he was doing; booking them in a Vegas showroom one day, then a Detroit ghetto the next. He said, as popular as they appeared, they should've been playing big showrooms, not the cheesy lounges they always seemed to be playing in.
I’ve seen that documentary…it’s really good but devastating on how their abusive father - Bud Cowsill - destroyed the band and family. Really a sad story for a group that made such happy music.
There’s another great parody of them done by Chris Elliot called Action Family which is this demented mix of Brady Bunch/Partridge Family and Baretta or something. PF stuff starts at 25:47.
Shirley Jones' Son Ryan Cassidy Releases Children's Book on Day with James Cagney: 'He Was Bigger Than Life'
Click on the picture to enlarge it---especially to whet your appetite with that mouth-watering chili-dog.
A Google search turned up this: After exhaustive research with a highly reliable source, we have uncovered the following...the actual bus lived for years behind Lucy's Tacos on Martin Luther King Blvd, right by USC. When Lucy's repaved their parking lot, circa February 1987, the bus was sent off to a junk yard. It was in horrible shape -- windows broken, tires flat, all identifying type (such as the family name on the side and the "Caution Nervous Mother Driving" sign on the back) was painted over in white and the rest of the bus was miserably faded. So, the upshot is that the orginal bus is long gone.
