How Shaun Cassidy survived the pop music machine

Baby-faced Shaun Cassidy scored three platinum albums before his 20^th birthday, at the same time he was starring in a top-rated family series.

But the shelf life of a teen idol is short, and in time the TV show (The Hardy Boys Mysteries, 1977-79) was canceled and new singing ssensations supplanted him.

Cassidy forged a new career, as a TV creator, writer and producer of such programs as American Gothic, New Amsterdam and Invasion.

The son of stage/TV actor Jack Cassidy and Oscar winner Shirley Jones emerged from the straightjacket of pop idolatry intact. Which was more than could be said for his older half-brother, the late Partridge Family star David Cassidy, who had a rough go of it.

Cassidy, 67, hadn’t toured since the 1980s – he keeps pretty busy – but for the last few years he and a band have been appearing around the country with a cabaret-style show that combines music with storytelling.

It’s called The Road to Us, and it’s at the Capitol Theatre (Clearwater) Friday at 8 p.m. (find tickets at this link).

St. Pete Catalyst: You’ve said ‘I’m in show business but not of show business.’ What does that mean?

Shaun Cassidy: For me, it means that I love the work, I love the creative aspect of my job, but I’ve never felt like the glitzy side, the red carpet side, even the famous side was a positive. In fact, it’s often a negative, it’s often a distraction.

I think one of the reasons I took a 40-year break from performing – doing concerts – is because I was eager to have a more grounded life. And I found it as a writer and producer, still very creative but not having to be in the spotlight all the time was a much healthier choice for me.

Were there lessons to be learned from the examples of both your parents, and from your brother? They were all famous people.

Absolutely, and they were all models for me – good, bad and everything in between. I got to go to school watching my dad and my mom, and David later, not just in how they performed, but in terms of how they dealt with being public figures. How they treated the public. How they managed their success and failure. They were all very instructional for me.

What I realized, not very long after I’d had my own success, was that the road I had followed was theirs – acting, singing – but the road I found for myself was as a writer and a producer. And that’s really where I belonged. I think had I not grown up in a house filled with performers I wouldn’t have become a performer at all.

You were a punk and glam fan – you had rock ‘n’ roll street cred – before you got signed to Warner/Curb Records. Did you resent being turned into a squeaky-clean pop star?

I went willingly because I wasn’t transformed. It was a role I was playing. I don’t think that would’ve happened without The Hardy Boys. I was playing Joe Hardy. If you’re playing one of the Hardy Boys, I guess you could play punk rock on the side, but then you’re just sort of confusing the audience. I was always aware of ‘What’s the story we’re selling here?’

Yes, in high school I’d been in punk bands. I basically lived on the Sunset Strip. Glam rock was a big thing. I saw the New York Dolls multiple times, Iggy Pop multiple times, I was a huge David Bowie fan … and I wasn’t that self-aware then, but I later realized what all these acts had in common was that they were all very theatrical. And of course that makes sense because I grew up going to Broadway theater to see my father, and seeing my mother in movie musicals.

So I get signed as an actor to do a show called The Hardy Boys, which is as Mom and Pop, All-American as you can get, and I was like ‘OK, I’ll do that.’

Your new-wavey 1980 album Wasp was produced by Todd Rundgren. I always saw that as deliberate attempt to quote-unquote shake off the image. Was that right? ‘The records aren’t selling any more – if I’m going out, I’m going out doing what I want’?

Well, it wasn’t that the records had stopped selling. They had been declining for sure in sales. But Todd is a guy that I loved when I was a teenager. I thought Something/Anything was one of the greatest records ever. He, like Prince, had written everything and played everything.

I thought maybe this guy work with me? He’d certainly have something to teach me.

I ended up living in his house in New York for three months, making the record with he and his band Utopia, basically in his barn. He said ‘You’re an actor, right? Let’s act some more. On this record, let’s play a lot of different roles.’

He said ‘Let’s shoot the moon, try a bunch of different things. Some of them may be great and some may suck. But it’ll be a declaration of independence for you, and maybe you’ll find the road you want to follow out of this.’

So I don’t think it was as self-conscious as ‘I’m going to blow up my image and piss off all the kids who loved Da-Doo-Ron-Ron,’ it was more like the natural order of things. And actually, much of what I recorded on Wasp was closer to what I was doing before I ever recorded ‘Da-Doo-Ron-Ron.’

Was the label horrified when you turned that album in?

I don’t know if they were horrified – they never told me. But it sold eight copies. I remember talking to the head of promotion, and I said ‘What should I do now?’ And he said ‘You should go away.’

Not forever – not for 40 years, like I did – but he said let people forget about you for a while, and come back better. It was a great piece of advice.

But I had already transitioned into a whole other career, behind the scenes in show business, that was even – for me – more creatively fulfilling. I’m writing and creating television shows.

To write something, and six months later show up on a set where 300 people have a job because you had some crazy idea at four in the morning? That is like magic. And that is my true passion. When I found my true passion, I ran with it.

In fact, I wrote the show I’m doing right now. And it’s not just a pop show of old pop songs. It has a through-line and a narrative. Come for the songs, leave for the stories.

Do you sing “Till There Was You,” which your mom did in The Music Man?

Well, I do – you’ve just given away one of my big secrets! When I was 4 or 5 years old, I only owned two records. One was With the Beatles, the second Beatles album, and the other was the soundtrack to The Music Man. Which I assume my mother had given me.

What was crazy about these two very different records: They both had the same song on them! McCartney sang ‘Till There Was You.’

What I realized recently was that those two records, and that song, are kind of the intersection of everything that’s ever inspired me musically since.

‘Trouble With a T, and that rhymes with P’ from The Music Man, that’s rap music. And Meredith Willson, the composer of The Music Man, was also a classical composer. Then there’s McCartney’s melodies …

And I asked my friend Brad Paisley what’s the difference between country music, which I love, and pop music? He said ‘Pop music is poetry and country music is storytelling.’

And all of that was like ‘Oh, I can do a show in 2025 and not look like a guy trying to replicate the success he had at 20.’ That was my fear, honestly.

I didn’t want to be that guy putting on satin pants and pretending I was 20 years old. It’s a purpose-driven show, and that’s my connection to this audience. It’s not The Road to Me, it’s The Road to Us.