70s idol Shaun Cᴀssidy reveals why he gave up touring for 40 YEARS

Shaun Cᴀssidy, who catapulted to fame as one of the top teen idols of the 1970s, has explained his decision to give up touring for 40 years.

Born into showbiz as the son of The Partridge Family star Shirley Jones and Broadway heartthrob Jack Cᴀssidy, Shaun, 67, became a pop sensation in his own right in 1977 at the age of 18 thanks to his cover of The Crystals’ Da Doo Ron Ron.

At the same time, he was a lead on the smash TV show The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, further swelling the ranks of his devoted fanbase of adolescent girls.

However, after a few blazing years churning out hit singles like Hey Dearie and That’s Rock ‘n’ Roll, he stopped playing concerts in 1980 and did not resume until 2020.

He pivoted in the interim to a backstage career as a writer and producer on such TV series as Blue Bloods and Sarah Paulson’s 1995 cult classic American Gothic.

Now, as he prepares for another tour, he explained that his withdrawal from the spotlight enabled him to lead a more ‘normal life,’ via People. 

The Daily Mail has contacted Shaun’s representative for further comment. 

Shaun Cᴀssidy, who catapulted to fame as one of the top teen idols of the 1970s, has explained his decision to give up touring for 40 years; pictured in April

Shaun, 67, became a pop sensation in his own right in 1977 at the age of 18 thanks to his cover of The Crystals’ Da Doo Ron Ron; pictured onstage in the 1970s

‘I played the Houston Astrodome for 55,000 people. And I said: “Goodnight. See you soon.” And I didn’t do another concert until 2020, 40 years later,’ he said.

By that point, aged 21, he had already cut five albums, beginning with a self-тιтled release that proved to be a commercial juggernaut and culminating, after diminishing returns, in two LPs that failed even to scratch their way onto the Billboard 200.

Shirley Jones turns 90! The Partridge Family star whisked up to mountain resort by sons Shaun, Patrick and Ryan Cᴀssidy to ‘get happy’ at birthday celebration

Shaun explained in his new interview that the impetus for his exit from his old touring lifestyle ‘wasn’t because I didn’t love doing concerts.’

The showbiz ‘nepo baby’ continued: ‘It wasn’t because I didn’t love playing music and being in front of an audience, but I just found that writing and producing television, which has been my main job for much of the last three, four decades, just allowed me to have something closer to a normal life.’

Shaun observed that ‘a normal life, a grounded life, a stable life was something I really didn’t have as a kid. So I yearned for it as an adult and it took me a while to find it, but I did, and I’m really grateful I did.’

His atypical childhood included not just his upbringing in the entertainment industry, but also the fact his Broadway star father Jack Cᴀssidy was a bipolar alcoholic.

During his adolescence but before he became a star, Shaun’s parents divorced – and two years later, in 1976, his father horrifyingly burned to death after falling asleep on the sofa with a cigarette in his hand and setting his penthouse alight. 

Shaun’s search for normality included two failed marriages, first to Playboy Playmate Ann Pennington, whom he exchanged vows with in 1979 – the year before he stopped touring – and with whom he welcomed two children before their divorce in 1993.

At the same time, he was a lead on the smash TV show The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, on which he is pictured (left) with Parker Stevenson (right)

after a few blazing years churning out hit singles like Hey Dearie and That’s Rock ‘n’ Roll, he stopped playing concerts in 1980 and did not resume until 2020; pictured in Germany in 1978

His next wife was Quantum Leap actress Susan Diol, by whom he fathered one daughter over the course of their marriage from 1995 until 2003.

Since 2004, he has been married to his third wife Tracey Lynne Turner and had a further four children with her, bringing the grand total of his progeny up to seven.

Although he pulled away from pop concerts in 1980, he did spend the ensuing two decades acting onstage, including on Broadway in a production of the beloved British musical Blood Brothers by Educating Rita writer Willy Russell.

He starred in Blood Brothers alongside his actual half-brother and fellow former teen idol David Cᴀssidy, who had co-starred with Shirley Jones – Shaun’s mother and David’s stepmother – on the classic 1970s sitcom The Partridge Family.

Before he started touring again in 2020, he had been ‘asked over the years to’ do so but demurred because he ‘felt like I was going to be either trying to recreate the success I’d had at 20, and that felt kind of silly, or I was afraid I might jeopardize my writing career because suddenly, people aren’t taking me seriously in my desk job.’

When he was presented with an opportunity to bring an ‘authentic’ concert to the stage, he finally agreed and found he thoroughly enjoyed himself.

‘I didn’t know if anyone would come. I didn’t know if anybody would care. I didn’t know if I’d like it, but I loved it and people showed up,’ he said.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic forced him back offstage, ‘the agent kept calling’ with the tantalizing prospect of a new professional frontier.

Shaun was born into showbiz as the son of The Partridge Family star Shirley Jones and Broadway heartthrob Jack Cᴀssidy, who are pictured together in 1959 

‘He said: “If you want to do this for real, let me book you on a real tour, tour, like the big boys do,” which I had never done. I never did that back in the day because I was working on The Hardy Boys,’ he explained.

‘I was an actor on this television show and I could only go out on weekends to do concerts or maybe a couple of weeks in the summer because I was recording and doing all kinds of other stuff,’ added the Los Angeles native.

In 2025, he played 57 North American cities, and the venture was a resounding enough success that his agent approached him to repeat the exercise.

Burdened with other commitments, including a Broadway show he is apparently writing, Shaun was unable to embark on a tour as long as the previous one.

However, he agreed to a shorter two-month run of concerts around Christmastime this year, enтιтled Unwrapped and featuring two original seasonal songs by Cᴀssidy himself, as well as a number of familiar Yuletide standards.

‘One of the benefits of not having continued doing concerts all these years is none of these feels tired,’ Shaun observed on the subject of going back on the road.

In 2025, he played 57 North American cities, and the venture was a resounding success; pictured at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles last September

‘I don’t hate the songs because I’ve been singing them for 40 years. They’re fresh. And I feel that with the audience and they feel it. It’s fresh to them too.’

During his early career, he ‘went from playing, literally, my high school dance, to playing Madison Square Garden,’ performing in venues where he had previously seen the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, ‘and, oh, my brother David,’ from the audience.

‘And then here I am seven years later, playing it, and then running off to Studio 54 afterward with Andy Warhol,’ Shaun remarked with a laugh.

Touring now is ‘more gratifying’ to him than it was in his youth, because he feels members of his audience ‘know me or are getting to know me now’ in a way that had not been the case when he was playing to teenagers with his poster on their walls. 

‘My audience was very young. I was very young,’ he said. ‘But I’m 18, 19, 20, there’s a big divide between 12, 13, 14, which is primarily what the audience was. Now, we’re all kind of in the same boat and our acne has cleared up, which is nice.’