Life has been one long, incredible journey for David Cassidy, and no one knows it better than the man himself. His show at the Granada Theatre this Sunday, February 19, will be a special one, as it will be the last one he ever plays on the West Coast. “This is the thing I love to do the most, but I just got to a point that my body, after 49 years, was beat up by working and traveling and touring from all over the world,” said the Partridge Family idol, who has arthritis. “But I still have a fire in my gut for it.”
That fire was stoked from a very early age for the pop sensation, whose life has been the inspiration behind many a biopic and behind-the-scenes retrospective. He knew as young as 3½ years old the destiny that lay ahead, when he saw his parents perform in a matinee when they lived in Manhattan. “It changed my life because I knew exactly what I wanted to do: go back to New York and work for a theater company, get an agent, and start going to auditions, and that’s exactly what happened,” said Cassidy, whose career really took off after a casting director invited him to audition in L.A. In a quick matter of time, he found himself playing Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” for a little pilot with the working title The Family Business.
Things didn’t exactly go as expected, and the unbelievable whirlwind that followed, with Cassidy vaulted to then-unprecedented levels of teen adoration, was totally unintended. Though he knew he could sing, having grown up in a family that was doubly musical and theatrical, “I had no intention of pursuing my career as a musician or as a singer,” he said.