The Cowsills In Magazines

By Catherine Frumerman

Photos by Bruce Frumerman

Under a pale grey sky, the aircraft from nearby Fort Lauderdale Airport climbed indifferently over the Celebrity Summit upon whose upper decks 2000 passengers, mostly in tie dye, gathered for the Flower Power Cruise's celebratory sunset sail away - its seventh since 2016. DJ Mario Vine appeared on stage at 3:30 kicking off proceedings by joking and playing snippets of songs relating to the bands on board. For example, for cruise star Pete Best Vine cued a quadruple pun: The Beatles' "Money” - "The best things in life are free!"

Nearly all of the artists stayed on board for the seven-night cruise. Lulu, Swang Stewart, David Freiberg, Susan and Paul Cowsill and other stars would come for meals at the Ocean View Cafe and pop into venues around the ship to see their fellow artists perform.

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The preternaturally youthful Dante, who will be 80 years young in August, is a member of the Happy Together tour where he often takes on erstwhile Turtle Howard Kaylan’s role. Here, with his own musicians, he seemed to condense an entire Happy Together concert into his one-hour event with some of the sunniest songs of the 1960s including "Sugar, Sugar." Near the end of his set, with the Summit still in the marina, he dedicated "I'm a Believer" to Davy Jones. He was also joined by three of the original Cowsills, Susan, Paul and Bob, to cover "Get Together."

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I bumped into Paul Cowsill one day in the Summit's secret elevator passage. Why secret? Well, when the other elevators were jammed, as they often are on cruise ships, there were only ever a couple of people on these. So, they must be secret. Anyway, I said to him, "I hope you'll be doing 'Indian Lake.' The tall Cowsill brother acknowledged that they would and added, "Did you know we were banned at some venues from doing it? Something about me doing a war dance." I said, "That's odd, you'd think they'd worry more about a rain dance." Then he said, "There was something about war whoops, too." Strange, no? How much more innocent can lyrics be than, "You can swim in the cove, have a snack in the grove, or you can rent a canoe at Indian Lake."

The Cowsills did do "Indian Lake" along with other songs in which they could utilize their deceptively carefree harmonies including, "You Were On My Mind," "We Can Fly," "The Boxer," "This Boy," "Love American Style," Susan Cowsill's showstopper "To Sir With Love" and "The Rain, the Park and Other Things," which Paul dedicated to "all the flower girls out there."

Near the end of the show Susan invited Blaise Sison, bassist and music director for Family Stone, and singer Stewart to come up on stage. She said that earlier Sison and Stewart confessed that they had sampled from The Cowsill's "Hair" without permission. So, their penance, for the final song, would be to sing "Hair." As Sison and Stewart mounted the floorboards Susan handed them tambourines instructing them to remember that it goes, "Hair, hair, hair, hair."

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