Shaun Cassidy, ’70s teen heartthrob, returns to the stage in Madison | Music

When Shaun Cassidy performed for 55,000 people at the Astrodome in 1980, he had no idea it would be his last show for four decades.

Cassidy spent most of his career as a television writer and producer, working on shows like “Blue Bloods” and “New Amsterdam.” But he might be best known as a ’70s teen icon — his poster was on many a teen’s wall — and a member of one of the era’s most famous families.

His mom is Academy Award-winning actress Shirley Jones, and his father, Jack Cassidy, is a Tony Award-winning actor. Half-brother David Cassidy was also a teen sensation, releasing hit records and starring (with Jones) in the ’70s hit show “The Partridge Family.”

In 1980, Shaun Cassidy decided to leave performing behind. He started touring again 40 years later, spurred by the solitude of the COVID-19 pandemic. He’ll stop in Madison as part of his “The Road to Us” tour on Feb. 18 at the Barrymore Theatre, 2090 Atwood Ave.

“I missed this connection with people,” he said. “I found that storytelling, which has been my job, became the key for me to go back out on the stage.” 

At first, Cassidy “wrote a one-man storytelling show without any music, and I did it for some of my friends. And they were like, ‘Yeah, stories are great, but people are going to throw things at you if you don’t sing “Da Doo Ron Ron.’”

The show is funny and emotional, and Cassidy has realized how powerful nostalgia can be. 

“I see 25-year-olds tearing up as they look at their moms, because they’ve heard that their moms felt this way about me over the years, and they didn’t really know what that meant until this night,” he said.

The Cap Times talked to Cassidy ahead of his Madison show about stepping away from performing in his 20s, refusing to let others label him and whose poster he had on his own bedroom wall.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

It’s wild that you didn’t know the Astrodome show would be your last show ’til now. When did you make that decision?

I didn’t — it just sort of happened. I got married really young. I had two kids by the time I was in my mid-20s, and, like many people in their mid-20s, I was still trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.

I could have kept acting — I did a lot of theater — or kept making records or whatever. But even while I was working on “The Hardy Boys,” I found myself more interested in writing than anything else.

When I was 29, I sold my first movie, a television movie. And on the heels of that, I wrote a pilot called “American Gothic,” which became a big deal. A lot of people couldn’t quite put together the idea that this boy-next-door kid — who they thought I was — had written this very dark story, and that opened the door to me to be able to kind of do anything.

Once you’re out of whatever lane people think you belong in, you get to play in all the lanes, and that’s been the story for me ever since.

What should people expect from your show?

The show is a combination of songs many people will know, some new songs, and some songs my family is known for, all mixed with a series of stories.

It’s not totally scripted. I go off-book a lot, but there is a beginning, middle, and end. And the theme of the show — “The Road to Us” — is about our collective journey. The audience and mine, speaking to those who may have been at my concerts back in the day and have come again, and to the large percentage of the audience who are new.

I feel like at this point in the world, it’s so important to get people out from behind a computer and out of their house and into a room where they can have fun together and have our collective humanity spill out over each other, and music and storytelling are great ways to do that.

I was reading an interview you did with the LA Times, and Bernie Taupin (Elton John’s songwriting partner) said you sound better now than you did when you were 20.

That’s really sweet of him to say — he’s a dear friend. In all humility, I do because I haven’t sung every night for 40 years. If you have hit records from a certain decade and you’re out singing them over and over and over again, you’re probably gonna end up hating those songs because you’re so tired of them, and you’re probably going to burn your voice out.

Neither of those things happened to me. I get to sing these songs with a level of passion and commitment I would never have if I had continued doing it. It all feels very fresh to me.

What is it like revisiting songs you wrote in your teens? Do they resonate with you differently as you talk about them four decades later?

It’s one of the most thrilling parts of doing this, because it’s like you’re doing archeology on yourself and wondering, “What was I thinking, or what was I writing about?” Some songs feel like I anticipated, somehow, potentially singing them in 40 years. 

My show is a lot of shared discovery and shared experience. I talk about my family a lot, and I’m very open — it’s not all shiny and glossy. It’s very real.

When I first started (performing again), I was speaking kind of generally about my family, and it didn’t land. The more specific I got, the more open I got, the more honest I got, the more people felt like I was talking about them.

This question was literally submitted by my mom: Who did you have a poster of on your wall when you were a teen?

I don’t think I had a female pin-up. Is your mom coming to the show?

No, she’s in Miami.

(laughs) Well, I ask because I answer that question in the show.