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Teen pop idol Barry Cowsill, of the singing Cowsills family, was washed away along with so many others in Hurricane Katrina, and his body was found months later in the Mississippi River. His life had plummeted after the Cowsills' string of hit records dried up, and he'd been forced to support himself by working construction and being a waiter. Compounding the family tragedy, the surviving siblings learned about the death of their fifty-eight-year-old brother Bill, who'd been the group's lead singer, as they were holding a memorial service for Barry. All the Cowsills suffered under their abusive father Bud, who evidently squandered some $20 million in earnings.
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On July 19, 2018, I spoke with Bob Cowsill. I was familiar with the sad story of the Cowsills, the large family musical act that the television show The Partridge Family was based on. Bob told me how after their few years of fleeting fame, he discovered he had some $21,000 in tax debt to show for it. I had read an earlier interview with Bob on the Classic Bands website where he stated, "I was living in Los Angeles in 1969 with the number one song in the country, 'Hair' and by 1970, I had a job sweeping a garage." Bob didn't speak much about his father, who mismanaged the group, but went into some detail about the Cowsills' eight-year long legal battle with Universal Music Group. Bob had signed the band's original 1967 contract without reading the fine print, like so many of his peers in the business had. While he's sworn to being twenty-one in so doing, he was actually only seventeen. The suit was finally settled, to everyone's satisfaction with a lump sum of $100,000 to each member of the band as what was surely only partial compensation for past royalties. The group negotiated a buyout and a new royalty rate that, in Bob's words, was one that "anyone can dream about." Bob shared a telling anecdote that I found especially moving, describing his daughter hearing their huge hit The Rain, the Park and Other Things playing as she sat in the theater watching the 1994 film Dumb and Dumber (for which, of course, the Cowsills received no remuneration). I could only wonder how many children of other entertainers had been through the same experience. Bob Cowsill remains upbeat, and noted that their lawsuit proved that things "can be resolved successfully with no hard feelings." Still touring regularly, Bob left our conversation to get ready for another show.
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