Rock Me Baby

I have to admit that David Cassidy’s solo LPs or recordings with the Partridge Family, for which he is best known, was immediately dismissed in the 70s as prefab fluff or bubblegum music. By the time he recorded “Rock Me Baby”, Cassidy was already jaded by the teenybopper image he had been crowned with two years prior. In an earnest attempt to have his rock peers see him as something else but a piece of pre-teen marketed meat, Cassidy tried to break the mold with this 1972 gem. The “album” opens with wailing guitars on the title track “Rock Me Baby” and Cassidy’s trademark smokey vocals. The song was an earnest sexual song and a far cry from his Partridge roots. Seemingly strange, considering his earlier protests of speaking a verse in the Partridge’s “Doesn’t Somebody Want To Be Wanted” a song that Cassidy loathed, here again is a speaking part that was loaded with sexual innuendo. A great lead in track that goes right into a great version of the Rascal’s “Lonely To Long”. Next is a smokey ballad “Two Time Loser” that was written by Cassidy himself and although it shows great maturity it still mirrors the teenage angst that the Partridge tunes were already pushing by this time. The fourth track is the highly sexually charged “Warm My Soul” originally slated to be a Partridge tune for the “Up To Date” LP but was scrapped as being too “sexual” for a preteen LP. Cassidy really vamps up this number. Following “Soul” comes another Cassidy co-penned tune called “Some Kind Of A Summer” which sounds so autobiographical that Cassidy could have led into a storyteller type status well kept by future artists at that time like Dan Fogelberg and Harry Chapin. In my own humble opinion, Cassidy should have written many more songs himself whereas this LP grandly showcases his talent and earned him some of the respect he richly deserved when the LP was released. Also another great Oh No No Way rounds out the LPs first side. “Song For A Rainy Day” is yet another Cassidy written tune co-penned with the famous in her own right, Kim Carnes one of Cassidy’s background singers at the time. This CD is jam packed with stellar ballads and is well worth a listen. Cassidy had turned a corner with this collection and proved he was more than a “pretty face”. A validly serious attempt at what he did best. Other great ballads abound with the beautiful lilting “Soft As A Summer Shower” “Go Now” and “Song Of Love” and Cassidy sings each with an overwhelming sense of pride and deservedly so. This is undoubtably David Cassidy at one of his finest moments! The ballad “How Can I Be Sure” was released a single and peaked on the Billboard charts at #25. It is easy to see on one listen how this was NOT the only tune that should have been released as a single and one would wonder why Bell/Arista wasn’t smart enough to see this. It is obvious that they didn’t see David as the hot commodity he was outside the Partridge Family considering they could not release any compliation of David’s material without including his Partridge tunes. Yes, David IS one of the bubblegum years survivors and is carrying on a still hot career and this CD is positive proof of the reason why. One of David’s undeniably best solo projects for Bell/Arista records. Don’t pass this one over! It is worth every penny of it’s purchase price and more, more so due o the brilliant liner notes included by a foremost Cassidy historian, Lisa Sutton! Rock on, David!