An Interview with 

TB: It was fine at first, but towards the end they had a terrible falling out. My brother would have to go in and produce David’s vocals because he wouldn’t sing with Wes in the room. That was the last album, Bulletin Board. I think David was fed up with the schedule and the direction his career had taken and Wes got the brunt of it. It wasn’t easy for David. There was a lot of pressure on him. He got tired of being a bubblegum act.

GH: David has been vocal in his dislike, at the time, for the style of music. Did he try and change it right away?

TB: I think part of it was the times that we were in. Everybody wanted to be Hendrix, David included. But when he went on to do his own stuff, they didn't sell too well.

GH: It’s interesting to read the credits to David’s first solo album. This was supposedly his chance to record his style of music, yet all the credits are the same as a Partridge Family album, with the exception of Shirley.

TB: That’s right. On his second album, Kim Carnes and Dave Ellingson [her husband at the time] were brought in to sing vocals. Great people! Lovely people! But lots of artists were trying to spread their wings then and produce their own albums. That sort of thing happened so often.

GH: How/when did Shirley record?

TB: Shirley would come in last. She’d record and they would put her on her own separate track. I can’t swear to it but, to my knowledge, she isn’t on any of the albums. The reason why is not because she’s not a great singer, because she is a great singer, but the genre was not her genre. It would be like me trying to do a rock record – man, that would be awful. [Ed. note: For more on Shirley's actual participation, stay tuned for our interview with John Bahler.]

GH: Would they have used her on the episode mix?

TB: Oh absolutely. Quite often the episode mix was totally different. Many times the backing vocals are different on the episodes.

GH: Did you record the songs for the episodes separately from the recording for the albums? Or are they the same recording, but mixed differently?

TB: I remember recording songs more than once. I couldn’t tell you why, where, or how. I just know we did, and I seem to remember something about this being the TV version. But we did that so much. We used to do TV endings for things all the time. They all tend to blend together.

GH: When a song is written, is it written with a fade, or is there always a blunt ending?

TB: Some songs are written with a fade. You just sing it over and over till someone says, “OK, we have enough.” It all depends on the writer. There’s no formula.

GH: What was Wes like to work with?

TB: Wes was a good producer. He was a doll. He was great. He was very opinionated, but he had a great, wonderful, winning wit and personality. He knew what he wanted and we weren’t there to argue with him. We were there to do what he wanted us to do. However, one of the reasons why John and I were so successful is that, from the time we started in the business, we would respectfully not disagree, but just add, “Hey, here’s another way, if you want to consider it.” And we’d say that and if they bought it, great! If they didn’t, then we did it however they wanted. We weren’t paid to do that, we just wanted to help. Now on the Partridge Family, it was different because we were the vocal arrangers. There, we had a lot of say and Wes looked to us for that.

GH: When arranging the music, did they ever take into consideration that the band consisted of only a piano, organ, bass, guitar, drums and tambourine?

TB: (Laughs) No, because that’s been done forever, in movies especially. A guy will be singing to a girl in a garden and all of a sudden an orchestra is playing! It was creative license. I don’t think it really ever bothered anybody.

GH: On the records, the female part is prominent (especially since the series supposedly has three girls singing), yet only one female was recording. Did Jackie Ward sing two different harmonies, or was she double-tracked? How was that handled?

TB: My brother sang up in the girl’s range, in falsetto. We all did. When we re-recorded the songs last year for David Cassidy’s movie, Jackie’s throat was a little sore and she was having trouble sustaining some of the things we were doing, so I went up there and sang it with her - and I was singing bass a minute before. Well, “Partridge Family bass”, which is what we call teen-age bass. But any one of us was capable of singing up in those high registers. One of the reasons why it was written so high is because it was supposed to be kids singing. That’s where John figured they would sing. So basically, it was Jackie on top, my brother sang second, which was an alto part so he was singing in a girl’s register to begin with. Then Ron sang tenor and I sang teen-age bass, which is really like a second tenor/baritone part. And at any time, any one of us could switch depending on the sound we needed or wanted.

GH: How many songs would have been recorded for an album?

TB: We probably recorded 14 songs for every 11 that appeared on an album.

GH: Where would the songs go that were discarded?

TB: Probably to the next album. I don’t recall too many things that weren’t used.

GH: Did you work per album or per song?

TB: We always went in to sing at least 3 or 4 songs per night.

GH: How long did it take you to complete an album?

TB: Well, one of the albums - I think it was “Notebook” or “Shopping Bag” -  was done in a Saturday because they had some kind of a deadline. David wasn’t available because of shooting or something. They were in a big hurry, so we did it in one day.

GH: Were the background vocals recorded together, or separately?

TB: No, we were always on the same track. We used the same mike, maybe two mikes. I think Ron and I had a mike and John and Jackie had a mike.

GH: When did David and Wes start having problems? Was it always over content and direction of the music?

TB: You know, that was always the kind of thing I tried to avoid even noticing. John and I got to know David and he’s a lovely man. Basically, he wanted to do something else, but it wasn’t what he was hired to do. I think he was very conflicted about it, but Wes wasn’t conflicted at all. He wanted what he wanted. At first, David was thrilled to have the job, but after a while it began to wear on him. It stopped him from doing other things, and he felt trapped.
 

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