Tuesday, April 5, 2016

What does The Partridge Family have to do with Captain Kangaroo?


I was listening to The Partridge Family's first album on the way to work this morning (who wasn't?). Their records sounded very much like as the Captain Kangaroo show of the early '70s (there were lots of filmed musical video segments) as well as Sigmund and the Sea Monsters--the same producers (Wes Farrell, Steve Bedell) and singers (Jackie Ward, Tom Bahler, etc.).

That's why you usually heard David Cassidy backed by what I'm assuming was Shirley Jones and a group of grown up studio vocalists (which was weird considering they were lip-synched by teens and children).

What I never noticed was that Cassidy only sings small portions of "To Be Lovers." And he is not even present on one of the songs, "I'm On The Road," making it sound exactly like it could have been included (with more kid-friendly lyrics) on the two-record Captain Kangaroo album Colors. This is the song:

Just an interesting observance. By the way, Colors is a great album if you like early '70s easy pop in the vein of Burt Bacharach and especially Charles Fox. Bob Keeshan, who was not really a singer, does not appear on the album at all, but it does include Lumpy Brannum (Mr. Green Jeans), Cosmo Allegretti (Mr. Moose, Homer) and the lovely Debbie Weems, who has some outstanding tracks including the memorable "Someday I'm Going to Go There." This track is called "Have a Happy Birthday":



No comments:

Post a Comment