The Cowsills In Magazines

WOULD YOU LIKE TO JOIN THE COWSILLS? WELL, COME ON ALONG WITH OUR EDITOR AND YOU'LL BE WELCOMED BY THE NICEST FAMILY ACT EVER TO HIT THE POP MUSIC FIELD. WE LOVE THEM AND WE'RE SURE YOU WILL, TOO.

Before the Cowsills tell you what being a Cowsill is all about, let me tell you something. This world may be chock full of groovy things, but nothing compares to the 9 deliciously warm and wonderful Cowsills. I just want to thank them, well, for being … so beautiful. – ed Harriet Lyons

AS TOLD TO HARRIET LYONS

Hi, I'm Barbara Cowsill - the mama. My kids are all crazy. Not really. They're all timid. Bill (oldest and lead singer) is basically

a very quiet boy. He has quite a bit of depth. Bob (organist) is a very good student. Paul’s (road manager) 15, but he’s going to get over that in a few years. John’s 11. He’s the drummer and is very vital, very sparkly. He just loves living and being 11. Like he says, he loves everything and all the colors in the world. And Barry (guitar) is a very quiet boy. He’s a good student, very conscientious and very realistic. And then Dick, he’s Bob’s twin and along with Paul takes care of the sound equipment, the lighting,

having the stage set-keeps us running smoothly.

Hello, I’m Susan Cowsill. I’m eight and a half and I’ll tell you all about me. I play tambourine and I sing. And this is not a crazy family, it’s a very good family. I have all these brothers, nice brothers, who don’t spoil me or play tricks on me. My favorite food is lobster, and the most exciting things I saw on our tour (for the MGM record distributors) was oranges that grow off trees.

Ooops!! Last one in the bus is ... Bill!

I don't know what's going on, but whatever it is, it's typical!

"Hey, Mom, what's a 6-letter word for Davy Jones?"

A quiet moment with Susie and her Dad.

Bob - "a very good student"

Bill - "basically a very quiet boy"

Hi there! I’m Barry Cowsill and I’m going to tell you what it would be like if you were a guest at our house. Wow! Ten o’clock that’s the average time everybody gets up. We’d welcome you by shaking your hand once or twice, and we’d all be happy and everything. For breakfast we’d have eggs, for lunch sandwiches. For dinner - Especially if you were real good company – we’d cook a roast beef. You’d sleep in a wrecked up old bed hanging in some room.

No, not really, it’d be pretty nice. But then you’d hear noises all night, because, you see, they say there’s a ghost at our house. We really live in the house that’s on our album cover. It’s something like 23 rooms in it, and all night there’s this ghost there. It’s name is Captain McCormick. He lived in the house before us and died there. Anyway, you can hear him banging on the pipes all night. We never try to get rid of McCormick because his ghost adds a nice old touch to the house. In all, you’d have a pretty good time. My family’s great. You know, what could I do without them?

My name is Bill Cowsill, I’m 19, and I guess you could say I’m the lead singer and rhythm guitarist and lead guitarist when Bob doubles on organ, which he does so well. (Whew!) He and I do most of the arranging and all the vocal arranging is ours.

We’re not trying to become anything but ourselves. The word star means nothing to us. We want to give people something that they haven’t got. I think it’s love. We’re trying to project this feeling of unity. We’re not trying to be something

Barry - "very conscientious, very realistic"

John - "very vital, very sparkly"

we’re not. This is our life – organized chaos. We’re real people and we want other people to say, hey, it’s real for a change. We’re a family and we’re music and they mean the same to us. It’s keeping us together.

My mother is with the group because she wants to be with her family and seeing as how we left her home all the time, she decided, well, to coin a phrase, if you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em. It was for us, not for her.

You know, she wants to be a star after 20 years of marriage – no! My father is everything. He’s the producer, the reproducer. He’s the backbone. He stays out of the way. He’s very cool and he is where it’s at. My parents think young. When a new Beatles album comes out they go as crazy as the rest of us. My father’s the oldest teenager I know.

We get a kick out of everything. We get a kick out of real little things that maybe other people wouldn’t get a kick out of.

When things are tough, that’s when we’re really happy ‘cause we can laugh. We can laugh at anything. Last winter, we almost lost our house and all that kind of stuff. Well, we didn’t have any heat and all the bill collectors were trying to get all our things back. But we were happy together.

YEAH, happy together ….