The tours, the songs, and other things with the real Partridge Family
By Ian Woolley
The Cowsills
The Cowsill family story begins in 1965 when brothers Bob, Bill, and Barry form their band with John joining them a short time later. A chance appearance on The Today Show led to them getting a recording contract with Mercury Records.
These days, it’s Susan, Paul, and Robert who are the three performing members of the US pop group.
The Happy Together Tour across the States sees the trio perform on stage with The Turtles, The Buckinghams, Gary Puckett & The Union Gap, The Vogues, and The Association. Just coming off the back of a marathon The Happy Together Tour and the imminent release of a new single, we thought it high time we caught up with this singing family.
Talking from Louisville in Kentucky, Bob tells me “We reach about 150 thousand people in the summer on that tour so we are all going to bop till we drop!” (Susan laughs). With fifty-seven cities on that mammoth tour, that’s some traveling. “It’s a lot” Susan adds. “I tell you sometimes we do up to 6 gigs in a row and you have to watch your talking and everything at our age. It’s rigorous.”
I asked her how she relaxes on tour. “Well, I have a bunk on the bus that pretty much looks like a room in my house. I read a lot and we go to the movies a lot. We are even going to one after we speak with you.”
With the ongoing covid thing, I asked Bob did they get to meet their fans personally traveling. “No, it’s actually pretty difficult the last few years. We went out last year just in August and we are all in this bubble. There are six acts on this show and we are all of a certain age and we have to be careful with that. Even this summer our promoters asked us to do that again so we haven’t been able to meet and greet.”
So who’s on that tour with you?
“Classics IV, Box Tops, Grass Roots, and the Vogues who are very good” Paul replies. “Oh and Ron Dante” (the band then breaks out in harmony singing Sugar Sugar). Susan chirps in “and Gary Puckett.” One more we can add to that list is the Buckinghams.
Despite their first single Most Of All failing to get anywhere, the label dropped them. With some moderate success, sister Susan and brother Paul joined making them a sextet two years later.
Fortunately for the family, writers Artie Kornfield and Steve Duboff wrote The Rain, The Park, and Other Things which they recorded in New York. MGM was so impressed and asked their mother to join them and sing on the song.
The septet’s timing and harmonising vocals were perfect for the summer of love of 1967 – encapsulating the flower power with its happy sing-a-long lyrics. The song earned Gold status.
I asked Bob if he was surprised by the song’s success. “At first we were very apprehensive because we’d been on two record labels and put out about four singles during high school that had not done well at all. We got dropped from other labels and so when ‘The Rain The Park’ came out we thought ok here we go again. I wasn’t going to tell my classmates we gotta hit record coming out because we had done that before so it was a pleasant surprise.”
For the youngest sibling Susan, who was just 8 years of age, joining the band was perfect timing for her. “I was inducted into the band just in time for the Ed Sullivan Show”. Bob recalls “the family band grew as the albums came out as we realised America love us. We all had a great time during those formative years and to hear it on the radio was beyond exciting.”
For the record, and a world record at that, Susan was the youngest female singer to have a Billboard top ten hit single. “Susan adds “mine was for Hair! and it’s pretty cool to share that position with Michael Jackson (youngest male singer in that category) which kind of makes him my boyfriend for like one second.”
“After he passed away, we heard a great story from a record store owner in Manhattan turning up late one night to have his record store open. He was looking and needed to hear his favourite song. It was by the Cowsills…The Rain the Park and Other Things. The man opened his record store let him buy the record and leave. Isn’t that cool?”
And then the Partridge Family connection. The popular TV show was based on the Cowsills family story but with Shirley Jones already signed up as their screen mum, the obvious path of the real family to act around her was off to a non-starter.
Sadly they lost a few siblings down the years and in 2006, they lost Barry who was living in New Orleans to Hurricane Katrina. Susan was caught up in the disaster too.
“You know we all live somewhere where something is going to happen and my something is water and torrential hurricanes. I wasn’t there physically but my husband was and most of the people I know. Most of them were evacuated and we all know the story about him not making it out but these are the things that life is made of.”
Dave adds “there is a great new song on the album about Katrina and Barry and Bob wrote an incredible song about Barry which is really cool. I was only a kid during that storm in 1954 but as soon as I read that opening line it gave me goosebumps.”
They recently launched The Cowsills Podcast and now comes the release of their new album – the first release from the group in nearly 30 years.
“This is only our third album since our heydays” adds Bob. “We had one in the late ’70s called Cocaine Drain which didn’t get released and has its own story. We had another in the late ’90s called Global which didn’t get released and has another great story. Now we have a new album that is getting released and will have another great story also. It’s eleven new songs from the group which we were writing on the Happy Together tour and when you write great songs there’s one thing you got to do is to record them.”
The first single released will be Rhythm Of The World, which has a Fleetwood Mac vibe about it which I put to the trio. “Our roots do come through on that track that’s for sure.”
Bob adds. “You know Byrds, Fleetwood Mac, Cowsills, and Tom Petty. We love Tom and jangly guitars and harmonies. The title track is out now and they’ll be putting Nuclear Winter out as an emphasis track before the album release.”
Susan ends with, “We’d love a promoter in England to bring us over and play our music over there.” Well, promoters?
Read the full unedited interview in the September issue of the Beat. Available to order via our website now.
The Rhythm of the World is the title of a brand new studio album from The Cowsills. The new record, featuring 11 original songs written by Bob, Susan, and Paul Cowsill, will be released on September 30th via Omnivore Recordings.
The Happy Together Tour dates still to come are –
Nov 1 – Dec 9 – Branson, MO @ The Andy Williams Christmas Show
Dec 10 – Waukesha, WI @ McCombs Performing Arts Center
Mar 23-31 – Miami, FL @ The Flower Power Cruise