Records, CDs and Music:

“Hello, hello” … a greeting that’s certain to take Partridge Family fans straight back to 1972 to their fifth studio album “Shopping Bag”. The Song “Hello, Hello” was the lead off song on side two of that album and was also featured on The Partridge Family TV show.

Speaking of The Partridge Family, today seems like a good day to take a look at some Partridge Family rarities.

Why, you may ask? Why not I reply.

If you’re a fan of the 1970s TV show “The Partridge Family” or the recording group of the same name then you’re surely familiar with several songs that were featured in various television episodes but never made it to record release.

Songs titles like “Working on a Groovy Thing”, “It’s Time That I Knew You Better”, “All of the Things” and “Together (Havin’ a Ball)”, just to name a few, just may conjure up a memory or two in the recesses of your mind.

(Note: Of course that mind would more than likely be over forty-five years old as all these songs appeared on Partridge Family TV episodes which aired originally from 1970 to 1974. Does that make you feel old? Me too.)

In fact there are over twenty songs that were either featured on the series or just plain left on the cutting room floor of the vaults of Bell Records, the record label that released The Partridge Family recordings.

So where does all that bring me?

In this post today I’m going to look take a look at three particular CD’s that features rare songs by The Partridge Family:

“David Cassidy Partridge Family Favorites” – Slamajama (1998) 

“Come On, Get Happy! The Best of The Partridge Family” – Arista (2005)

“Playlist – The Very Best of The Partridge Family” – Bell Records/Legacy/RCA (2013)

Let’s begin with “David Cassidy Partridge Family Favorites”:

This CD was sold through QVC by David Cassidy himself through his own, I believe, Slamajama record label. 

As I remember it this CD was sold along with a current David Cassidy CD “Old Dog New Trick”, also on Slamajama, and made available only on the home shopping network QVC. 

“David Cassidy Partridge Family Favorites” is basically just that, Partridge Family songs that Cassidy himself picked as his favorites.

Besides original recordings of most of The Partridge Family’s biggest hits like “I Think I Love You” and “Doesn’t Somebody Want to Be Wanted” the main draw of this CD for Partridge Family fans is that it contains two of the infamous unreleased Partridge Family tracks from the vaults – “Warm My Soul” and “It’s Time That I Knew You Better”.

Both of these tracks are exclusive to this particular CD and both sound great and are obviously from the studio masters.

“Warm My Soul” is an early Partridge track that Cassidy wanted as their second single and was recorded around the time of the “Up to Date” Partridge Family album.  As it’s a much funkier and more rock oriented song Partridge producer Wes Ferrell passed over the song as a single or album release and thus it remained in the vaults.

The other unreleased Partridge track, “It’s Time That I Knew You Better”, was featured on the Partridge Family TV episode “Where Do Mermaids Go?” from late 1971 that featured guest star Meredith Baxter later of “Family Ties” fame.

“It’s Time That I Knew You Better” is one of the better tracks from the early albums and was and is certainly worthy of release. It would have fit nicely on the “Shopping Bag” or “Notebook” albums so it’s pity it never appeared anywhere until its release on this CD.

Add in two unreleased Partridge Family era David Cassidy demos, “Sweetness” and “Mystical Lady”, and you have one terrific Partridge CD and one that’s particularly hard to locate though it does pop up for sale from time to time online.

“Come On, Get Happy! The Best of The Partridge Family”:

This CD contains the motherload of unreleased Partridge tracks as it features four tracks that appeared on the TV show yet for some reason never made it to records in the 1970s.

“Together (Havin’ a Ball)” and “Let the Good Times In” were both featured in the pilot episode of The Partridge Family (each without a Cassidy lead vocal) while “Stephanie” and “Baby I Love, Love, I Love You” also came from first season episodes yet were never issued on record.

(Note 2: Both “Together (Havin’ a Ball)” and “Let the Good Times In” are featured in full length versions on the “Come On, Get Happy! The Best of The Partridge Family” CD. They were truncated on the pilot episode and even though these two tracks didn’t include Cassidy vocals they were so well known to fans that they were a much welcome addition to this best of CD.)

I have to say that because of these four unreleased tracks as well as the stellar sound the “Come On, Get Happy! The Best of The Partridge Family” CD is one of the better Partridge CDs out there and well worth seeking out.

It’s too bad that when David Cassidy was alive he supposedly was not very cooperative in having many unreleased Partridge tracks coming out (rumor was he demanded too much money) so to have the six unreleased Partridge Family tracks from the previous two CDs above is fantastic and is probably the only official unreleased tracks we’ll ever get. 

“Playlist – The Very Best of The Partridge Family”

This particular CD doesn’t really contain any unreleased songs but it does include an exclusive stereo remix of the last Partridge Family Top Thirty hit “Breaking Up is Hard to Do” and features what I consider some of the best remastered sound of any Partridge Family CD out there.

It’s hard to beat the songs on this CD: