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Modern music fans had heard and dug their hit The Rain, the Park and Other Things, but it wasn't until they appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show that most people realized the Cowsills were not a shaggy haired rock 'n' roll group, but a beautiful normal family consisting of a "mini mom," four strapping sons and a lively eight-year-old daughter. The studio audience over-whelmingly approved. Ed Sullivan was so impressed he signed them for nine more appearances and a lot of talk is now going around to the effect that the Cowsills are becoming the Von Trapp family of the "now generation." If this is so, all that remains is to make a movie about them, with Julie Andrews.
Actually the family's background is so full f drama and excitement it would make a good picture. And it could be filmed right in the old Cowsill "monster mansion," which looks like a movie set anyway. Located at the top of one of the Newport, Rhode Island Hills, this 22-room house with its hanging screens, broken windows and 3 foot high law has seen great love, happiness and discouragement among its present occupants and is the birthplace of the fresh new Cowsill sound. It's there, four years ago, that Bud Cowsill, a retired Naval Officer decided that his four freckled-faced, guitar-strumming sons were ready for more than charity shows. With his other two sons working as road managers and Susan acting as mini mascot, they plunged the whole bunch into a full time effort to reach the top.
Success didn't come easily. Since all available money was put into the act there were times when the Cowsills had to survive on nothing but chocolate and marshmallows and were forced to burn pieces of furniture to keep from freezing to death. In addition to enduring these hardships, the kids had to keep up their studies and practice to build their repertoire to 500 rock, country and pop songs. They learned to live by a single dictum: "If you can't eat it, play it or perform with it, we can't have it."
Just as the marshmallows were beginning to run out the lightening they had prayed for so long finally struck. MGM signed them to a recording contract and The Rain, etc. appeared on the charts in the number 50 spot. Had it gone down instead of up, the Cowsills could have been finished. But Bud staunchly declared, "They're going to be a top recording group, there is no question in my mind. There never has been," and as if to prove his words the song jumped to number 4 and is still climbing as of this writing. Far from being stunned by their luck, the Cowsills took it all as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Barbara told Ed Sullivan, "There was all this music in them and it just had to come out." It was as simple as that.
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