24 Hours In, and 10% Funded!!

After our first 24 hours of launch, I am very pleased to report that we are showing an amazing 10% already funded towards our goal in bringing this book to life! 

There is certainly nothing quite like connecting with all of you who care so much about this project.  Your energy and eagerness to get on board and make this book a reality is fueled with an obvious passion, and you have sent us flying out of the gate!  Let's keep going!  Tell your friends and family!  Share it on Facebook and Twitter!  Get everyone on board that you can! 

Commemorative Lyric Sheet for "Doesn't Somebody Want To Be Wanted" signed by songwriter, Mike Appel! Only available on Kickstarter.com!

If you haven't already, please remember to sign up for our daily blog and you will get these daily updates sent automatically to your email. We will be doing a newsletter too, about once a month, and we'd love for you to sign up on that as well!

Back to the campaign trail....

Johnny

Songwriters, Boyce & Hart!

Other than Wes Farrell, Bobby Hart is credited on more Partridge Family songs than any other songwriter who wrote for the group. Bobby Hart offers up his memories to WHEN WE'RE SINGIN' on how his involvement with The Partridge Family came to be, and why his long-time writing partner, Tommy Boyce, was not on board for more of the songwriting efforts!

Hart wrote some of the greatest album cuts found on the later half of the Partridge Family albums, including “Sunshine,” “Looking For A Good Time,” “Money, Money,” “Girl, You Make My Day,” “I’m On My Way Back Home,” and many others, ALL of which are available as LYRIC COMMEMORATIVES at our campaign on KICKSTARTER.COM! 

We have just gone live with our campaign on KICKSTARTER.COM last night, and you can find a limited number of signed items by Bobby Hart available only from the campaign! We hope you will join us in this exciting time to produce this brand new book on THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY! 

The Kickstarter Campaign Has Officially Launched!

Well, here we are, gang! I hope you are as excited as I am! 

The Campaign has been launched within moments of this blog post! We have till May 31 to reach our goal! 

We have an exciting 30 days ahead of us, and I hope that you will all join me on the wild bus ride to get this book published and on the shelves for  Partridge Family fans, music fans, and fans of classic television!

In the next 30 days, you, the fans, will decide whether this book gets published. Here's the link that will take you over to our page on Kickstarter.com or you can go to Kickstarter.com and search for us by using the title of the book, When We're Singin' The Story of The Partridge Family and Their Music. It's time to have some fun on the campaign trail! 

"Come on now, and meet everybody....and hear us singin!"  Right?

Bell Records

Larry Uttal was president of Bell Records, a record label on top of the world during the run of The Partridge Family. When the show went off the air, Bell Records was also changing hands. Uttal went on to a new venture and Clive Davis took over, renaming the label Arista.

For the first time ever, former Bell Records executives are interviewed about The Partridge Family and share stories and insights about the record label and how it worked in tandem with the television show! Find out who came up with all the record album cover designs and the powerful and unbreakable image of The Partridge Family that was marketed to the entire world!

Newly-revealed interviews, Courtesy of Ken Sharp!

In 1993, author, musician and music historian Ken Sharp began research on a Partridge Family book, but soon discovered that Joey Green was already signed to do one (primarily as an episode guide) so Ken dropped his project. But Ken had interviewed the legendary Wes Farrell (music producer on all Partridge Family album) and songwriting legend Tony Romeo ("I Think I Love You") in what turns out to be the last known in-depth interviews given by these two music legends on the subject of The Partridge Family. Shockingly, both Farrell and Romeo passed away within six months of each other, and only shortly after these interviews took place. 

(Bell Records president Larry Uttal on left; Wes Farrell on right.)

Well, guess what? Along the wild ride taken in researching this book, the president of the Just David Fan Club (Barbara Pazmino) introduced me to Ken Sharp. She knew he could help me.  Ken had worked with David Cassidy on his 2008 autobiography, David Cassidy: Could It Be Forever, and he was intrinsic in getting all the outside interviews used in that book.  

Ken wanted to do whatever he could to help make When We're Singin' become the definitive book on The Partridge Family and their music, so he has graciously and whole-heartedly offered up  both the Farrell and Romeo interviews, in their entirety, for use in When We’re Singin’! Both Tony Romeo and Wes Farrell share loads of commentary, heard in the pages of this book for the very first time! Romeo and Farrell elaborate on putting the albums together, and discuss all of their individual songwriting efforts! It is a sentimental and passionate exposition of their work on this amazing body of music.

Thanks, Ken, for your incredible support!

Casting The Partridges

David Cassidy and Shirley Jones have a great story about how they first discovered they were cast together on The Partridge Family, a story that is frequently repeated on the talk show circuits.  But did you know there was more to the story? Much more!  

Read the behind-the-scenes complications from the casting director herself, Renee Valente, who recounts with great detail the very scenario about casting real-life family members--in this case a step-mother and step-son--on the same show, and what drama it created for the powers that be!  

Eighteen days until the Kickstarter campaign begins!  Keep spreading the news!!

The Music + The Image = Global Phenomenon

When We're Singin' explores the effort behind matching the image of the Television show to the sound of the music.

While the producers and creators of the TV show were crafting the look and feel of the show, the music was being done at Western Recorders, Studio 2, and Wes Farrell was in charge. Farrell was highly driven, and it was his responsibility to come up with credible pop music, but it had to match the desired image of the show.

He pulled the best musicians, singers and songwriters of the day into the project, and as a result the music was truly rooted in an adult contemporary, or easy listening sound.  With the music as believable as the strength of its image created through the magic of television, (thanks to some really terrific actors and directors) the marketing of this product took off on an international roller coaster ride that proved to be bigger than any TV/Music marketing package ever created up to that point. 

20 Days and Counting...

There's only 20 days left until our campaign begins on Kickstarter.com! In the coming days we will be previewing some of the exciting items that will be available as premiums on the site! We have limited edition song lyric commemoratives signed by the songwriters, themselves! Retro clothing patches with our logo on it! Commemorative magnets, guitar picks and even book marks that have been especially designed for autographs, and hand-signed by Partridge Family Executive Producer Bob Claver!  

Remember The Partridge Family in the Aztec version of their matching outfits? :)