''Bulletin Board'' is the eighth and final studio album by
The Partridge Family
''The Partridge Family'' is an American musical sitcom starring Shirley Jones and featuring David Cassidy. Jones plays a widowed mother, and Cassidy plays the oldest of her five children, in a family who embarks on a music career. It ran from Se ...
, released by
Bell Records
Bell Records was an American record label founded in 1952 in New York City by Arthur Shimkin, the owner of the children's record label Golden Records, and initially a unit of Pocket Books, after the rights to the name were acquired from Benny ...
(catalog number 1137) in October 1973. The album was recorded between July and September 1973.
[''Bulletin Board'' review by Howard Pattow]
from C'mon Get Happy, The Unofficial Website of The Partridge Family. ''Bulletin Board'' was the first Partridge Family album to fail to chart on
''Billboard'''s
Top LP's chart. "Looking for a Good Time" b/w "Money Money" was released as a single in November 1973 (catalog number Bell 45-414), but failed to chart. This was the last regular U.S. Partridge Family single.
The album cover featured a handwritten track listing pinned to a bulletin board, as well as a "family" photograph and a memo detailing the show's new Saturday night time slot. According to the liner notes for the CD release, the album cover was created within only a few hours due to time constraints. While
Wes Farrell
Wes Farrell (December 21, 1939 – February 29, 1996) was an American musician, songwriter and record producer, who was most active in the 1960s and 1970s.
Career
Farrell was born in New York, United States. Farrell's catalogue includes clos ...
is credited as producer on the album, in fact it was produced and arranged by
John Bahler
John Bahler (born November 11, 1940; surname also spelled Bähler) is an American vocalist, arranger, conductor, composer and producer. He is the elder brother of singer Tom Bahler, and the husband of Janet Lennon of the Lennon Sisters.
Early c ...
(also spelled as Bähler), a member of late-1960 pop group
the Love Generation
The Love Generation was an American pop rock band from the 1960s. The band was together from 1967 to 1969.
History
The Love Generation was founded by brothers John Bahler and Tom Bahler. The group was active from 1967 to 1969. John and Tom were ...
and, later,
the Ron Hicklin Singers
The Ron Hicklin Singers were a group of Los Angeles studio singers contracted and organized by Ron Hicklin. They are mostly known as the real singers behind the background vocals on The Partridge Family recordings.
In Los Angeles studio circles i ...
, several members of whom provided backing vocals on all of the Partridge Family albums. ''Bulletin Board'' is the only Partridge Family album recorded in a studio different from the preceding albums (which had all been recorded at Western Recorders, Studio 2 in Los Angeles).
Reviewer Dave Thompson of
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
gave the album a rating of 3½ stars out of 5, claiming it was more representative of
David Cassidy
David Bruce Cassidy (April 12, 1950 – November 21, 2017) was an American actor, singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He was best known for his role as Keith Partridge, the son of Shirley Partridge (played by his stepmother, Shirley Jones), in t ...
's solo material than the typical Partridge Family album: "the performances all lean a lot closer towards the Cassidy solo ideal – soft ballads, tight rockers – than the all-for-one harmonies and joy that characterized the Partridges' earlier releases." Howard Pattow, a member of the Partridge Family tribute band
Sound Magazine
''The Partridge Family Sound Magazine'' is the third studio album by TV-linked pop project The Partridge Family. Released in August 1971 ahead of the start of the second season of the US TV series, it was their third hit album in ten months. In ...
, states that "the music here is groovy and funky, a definite reflection of pop music's embrace of disco ... overall, the music on ''Bulletin Board'' is quite different from previous Partridge Family efforts ...
ndfeatures musicians that had previously not appeared on a Partridge record."
[
In September 2008 ]Collectors' Choice Music
Collectors' Choice Music (CCM) is an Itasca, Illinois, company originally primarily in two businesses, but since 2010 only in the second.
CCM was best known for reissuing albums originally recorded in LP record form as compact disc
The com ...
reissued the album on CD. Initially the disc was available exclusively through the company'
website
The disc contains two bonus tracks: both sides of the Bones Howe-produced Shirley Jones
Shirley Mae Jones (born March 31, 1934) is an American actress and singer. In her six decades in show business, she has starred as wholesome characters in a number of musical films, such as ''Oklahoma!'' (1955), ''Carousel'' (1956), and ''The M ...
single "Ain't Love Easy"/"Roses in the Snow", originally released in October 1972.
Track listing
All tracks from the original album, except "Where Do We Go From Here", were featured in the fourth and final season of the TV show
Personnel
Produced by Wes Farrell for Coral Rock Productions, Inc.
*Partridge Family vocals by Shirley Jones and David Cassidy
*Hal Blaine
Hal Blaine (born Harold Simon Belsky; February 5, 1929 – March 11, 2019) was an American drummer and session musician, thought to be among the most recorded studio drummers in the music industry, claiming over 35,000 sessions and 6,000 singles. ...
- drums
* Max Bennett, Jim Hughart - bass
*Larry Carlton
Larry Eugene Carlton (born March 2, 1948) is an American guitarist who built his career as a studio musician in the 1970s and 1980s for acts such as Steely Dan and Joni Mitchell. He has participated in thousands of recording sessions, recorde ...
, Richard Bennett, Ben Benay, Dean Parks
Weldon Dean Parks (born December 6, 1946) is an American session guitarist and record producer from Fort Worth, Texas.
Albums
Parks was member of the North Texas State One O'clock Lab Band before moving to Los Angeles to work with Sonny and Cher ...
- guitar
*Chuck Findley
Charles B. Findley (born December 13, 1947 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania) is an American trumpet player known for his diverse work as a session musician. He also plays other brass instruments such as flugelhorn and trombone. His technical abilities ...
, Tom Bahler - horns
*Lou McCreary, George Bohanon
George Roland Bohanon, Jr. (born August 7, 1937) is a jazz trombonist and session musician from Detroit, Michigan.
In the early 1960s, he participated in Detroit's Workshop Jazz ensemble, with Johnny Griffith (musician), Johnny Griffith, Paula Gr ...
- trombone
*Bill Perkins, Jackie Kelso
John Joseph Kelson Jr. (February 27, 1922 – April 28, 2012), known professionally as Jackie Kelso, was an American jazz saxophonist, flautist, and clarinetist.
Biography
Born in Los Angeles, California, Kelson was the eldest child of John Josep ...
, Bob Hardaway - saxophone
*Gary Coleman, Joe Porcaro - percussion
*Michael Omartian
Michael Omartian (born November 26, 1945) is an American singer-songwriter, arranger, keyboardist, and music producer. He produced number-one records in three consecutive decades. He has earned 11 Grammy Awards nominations and won three. He sp ...
, Larry Muhoberac
Lawrence Gordon "Larry" Muhoberac, Jr.; (February 12, 1937 - December 4, 2016, in Erina, New South Wales, Australia) was an American musician, record producer, and composer who was also known under pseudonyms "Larry Owens" and "Larry Gordon".
C ...
- keyboards
*John Bahler
John Bahler (born November 11, 1940; surname also spelled Bähler) is an American vocalist, arranger, conductor, composer and producer. He is the elder brother of singer Tom Bahler, and the husband of Janet Lennon of the Lennon Sisters.
Early c ...
, Tom Bahler
Thomas Lee Bahler (also spelled Bähler; born June 1, 1943) is an American singer, composer, songwriter, arranger, producer, and author. He is the younger brother of singer, arranger, conductor and composer John Bahler. Bahler is most known for ...
, Jackie Ward
Jackie Ward (born Jacqueline McDonnell, 1941), better known as Robin Ward, is an American singer, regarded as a "one-hit wonder" of 1963 million-selling song "Wonderful Summer". However, using her real name she was highly accomplished and s ...
, Ron Hicklin
The Ron Hicklin Singers were a group of Los Angeles studio singers contracted and organized by Ron Hicklin. They are mostly known as the real singers behind the background vocals on The Partridge Family recordings.
In Los Angeles studio circles i ...
- backing vocals[
Bonus tracks produced by ]Bones Howe
Dayton Burr "Bones" Howe (born March 18, 1933) is an American record producer and recording engineer who scored a string of hits in the 1960s and 1970s, often of the sunshine pop genre, starting in 1965 with The Turtles cover of Bob Dylan's "It ...
.
Recording dates
July 25, 1973:
*"Money, Money"
*"I'll Never Get Over You"
*"Alone Too Long"
*"Oh No Not My Baby"
July 26, 1973:
*"I Wouldn't Put Nothing Over On You"
September 4, 1973:
*"I Heard You Singing Your Song"
*"Roller Coaster"
*"Looking For A Good Time"
*"How Long Is Too Long"
September 5, 1973:
*"That's The Way It Is With You"
*"Where Do We Go From Here" The Partridge Family Recording Sessions
/ref>
Notes
{{Authority control
1973 albums
The Partridge Family albums
Albums produced by Wes Farrell
Bell Records albums