David Cassidy - Rock Me Baby

David Cassidy was striking while the iron was cooling. Rock Me Baby followed several months after his previous album Cherish went gold domestically. Rock Me Baby would stall just outside the top 40 at 41. His solo career would fare better in the UK and Australia but in North America but it certainly seemed like the gold run for The Partridge Family and David's solo career had come to an end in the first half of '72.

It must have been incredibly perplexing for a young 22-year-old David, who seemed to be trying to step out of the bubblegum pin-up world he was confined to. Like a lot of people who grew up in the '70s, The Partridge Family was essential television, but actually listening to the music outside the confines of the show was a lot to ask. I liked The Osmonds, but I wouldn't be caught dead listening to Donny. Icky ... germs.

When I found a copy of Rock Me Baby I snapped it up. Why not? The album cover looked cool, although the back cover was goofy. My oldest son popped downstairs while I was playing the album and saw the cover and asked me, "Why is he humping the post?" I hadn't thought of it that way, I just thought he was making a veiled phallic reference by showing his wood.

Maybe it's just me but when I hear David's voice it reminds me of Cher. Something in the tone or his vibrato. It's not a shot, just an observation. I'll be the first to give props to him too. His voice was powerful and mature and belied his youth. He was, dare I say it, soulful?

The songs here are actually pretty good, and several are actually downright catchy. The record sounds really good and the performances are top shelf. Bell Records hired the best of the best to flesh out the songs. Studio aces from Hal Blaine and Jim Gordon on drums to the holy guitar trinity of Louie Shelton, Dean Parks, and Larry Carlton were among the musicians on the album.

Wes Farrell, who also produced The Partridge Family records, was behind Rock Me Baby. I wonder how much input David had into the production and song selection? My guess is quite a bit and that Wes was there trying to harness David's musical aspirations and vision. David wrote "Two Time Loser," a really nice string-laden ballad on side one, and with Kim Carnes wrote "Song For a Rainy Day" that opens side two. They're among the best songs on the album.

The album plays it relatively safe and despite a desire to be taken seriously, David Cassidy was fighting an uphill battle for credibility. The title track was a really fun, almost glam-infused, light rocker that is probably the best track on the album. This may have been a middle-of-the-road safe-for-family-consumption record, but David really was giving it his all.

Listening to this now half a century later (goodness when I did get old) I no longer carry the same prejudice against those who were pretty enough to grace the page of Tiger Beat. This was a young man with a big voice who had the talent to deliver but was trapped by the very machine that made him famous.

The Partridge Family would record until 1973 and the show would stop production in 1974 and would live on in syndication. David wasn't even 25 and he'd lost his day job.

Styx - Paradise Theater

Styx was hands down one of my favourite bands as a kid. They were a strange band, even back then. They were a hard rock band, almost progressive at times, who had a penchant for sucky ballads. I know there's a tendency for people to zero in on "Babe" as the song that killed the band's credibility. The roots go way back to almost the beginning when Styx released "Lady" on their second album. It showed a side to the band that needed to be kept in check, and for the most part the band kept things on a pretty tight leash. The band had been setting a gruelling pace, releasing an album a year (two in 1972) and by the time they released Paradise Theater (if I end up writing theatre later it's because that's how we spell it here) in 1981 they'd dropped ten albums in less than a decade. I snapped this up as soon as I saw it, and it became a fixture on my turntable. Like the band had announced on "Borrowed Time" from 1979's Cornerstone , ...

David Baerwald - Bedtime Stories

The little sticker on the shrinkwrap says, "You may remember David Baerwald from David & David's Boomtown ..." You bet, I remembered David Baerwald. Back in 1986 Boomtown was an album with moments of sheer brilliance. The whole album may not have been as top shelf as the first few tracks, but that didn't matter - it is an excellent album. I waited for a follow-up ... and waited, and then in 1990 it was a solo David, David Baerwald, who dropped Bedtime Stories . I snapped it up. "All For You," the opening cut, is still my favourite song on the album. It was mesmerizing. I'm not sure if the song got any airplay, it may have, but that may have been wishful thinking on my part as it was on a lot of mix tapes at the time and I heard it a lot in the car. The CD had a great booklet with all of the musician credits and lyrics. Oddly, when I found a sealed copy of the record (a great score), it just had a plain paper insert - the picture of David walking wit...

Gary Numan - The Pleasure Principle

"Cars" was really the only song I knew by Gary Numan. I knew the name of the album the song came from. Over the years bits and pieces of trivia are accumulated, but in terms of his music it was still distilled down to one song ... It would be too easy to write Mr. Numan off as a one hit wonder, and I suppose in terms of actual chart hits this was his defining moment as a solo artist. Of course this really means nothing, as Gary Numan would drop an album a year pretty much through to the end of the '80s. He'd then slow down a little but continued to make music. While The Pleasure Principle was Gary Numan's debut solo release in '79, he actually cut his teeth on a couple of albums in a band called Tubeway Army, first with the band's self-titled release in 1978, and then on Replicas that came out in April of '79. By the end of Tubeway Army's run most of the band would follow Gary into his solo career. Paul Gardiner, who had been with Gary from the b...

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