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Louisiana medical officials Wednesday identified a body found in New Orleans on Dec. 27 as that of sometimes-troubled musician Barry Cowsill, 51, who vanished in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Family members said officials identified Cowsill through medical records after police took his body to a Baton Rouge morgue.
Police found Cowsill, who moved from Newport to New Orleans last summer, face down in water and mud under a New Orleans wharf, brother Bob Cowsill said Thursday.
"We're still waiting to find out the cause of death and if they have any idea how he died," his brother said. "We've been filling out paperwork in order to get more paperwork, basically."
In the aftermath of the hurricane, Barry Cowsill called his sister Susan from a New Orleans warehouse on Sept. 3. He left a message saying he was scared and that there was a "a lot of lootin' and a lot of shootin'" around him.
No one heard from him again.
The Newport-based Cowsills became a pop-music sensation in the late 1960s, putting four hits in the Top 40 including "The Rain, the Park and Other Things" and "Hair." They also appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and other popular shows of the period.
The group consisted of mother Barbara, Susan and brothers, Bill, Bob, John, Barry and Paul. It split apart in the early 1970s, amid allegations of financial mismanagement, fingering father/manager William "Bud" Cowsill as one of the bad guys.
Bud Cowsill died in 1992. Barbara Cowsill died in 1985.
The group has performed several reunion shows in Newport the past 15 years, adding brother Richard, not in the original group. Barry Cowsill, who moved around the country after the group disbanded, moved back to Newport a few years ago and then left for New Orleans, where he lived previously.
Bob Cowsill said his brother was going to enter a substance-abuse rehabilitation center in California, where Bob lives, when Katrina pummeled New Orleans. Bob Cowsill said that while Barry lived a turbulent life at times, "He would have called someone in all this time. He would've called his kids (Keira, Collin and Carrie) at the very least."
Friends say that Barry Cowsill, who battled mental health and alcohol problems, felt weighted down under the image of having been a child star. He also wanted to be a rock 'n' roller more than a pop star. In the 1970s, he lived in California and worked construction, playing music on the side, hanging out with people like Warren Zevon.
"He never felt he was good enough to play with them," Susan Cowsill said. "And he certainly was."
In Newport in recent years, he used Billy Goode's on Malborough Street as his musical base of operations. He played with a variety of local musicians, formally and in jam sessions.
"When he wasn't drinking," Billy Goode's owner Kevan Campbell said, "he could do anything when it came to music."
Local drummer Mike Warner played live with Cowsill and recorded a series of new tracks at Frank Dwyer's StageCraft studio two years ago. "I'm walking around the house in suspended animation," Warner said Thursday. "I'd always hoped he'd show up some day. I began to have my doubts when the holidays came and went and he hadn't called anyone."
Warner remains curious about a call made to Dwyer's studio on Halloween, in which a man, sounding like Cowsill said on an answering machine, "You're never there, dude. Never, never" and hung up.
Family members discounted the message, but friends seemed to think it was Cowsill. Warner said Thursday, "It doesn't matter now, obviously, but I still think it might have been him."
Warner said Cowsill was a multi-talented musician with great songwriting skills, "And I never heard him speak badly about another musician," Warner said. "He was very supportive. He was never malicious. And the music scene can get kind of nasty.
"Barry might've been streetwise, but to me he was something of an innocent."
Warner said he is struggling to digest the news. "It was great to be Barry's friend. It was an honor to play with him as a musician. And I'm very proud of the work we did together."
Bob Cowsill said he'd been bracing himself for a while. "I guess the only good thing is that now we know," he said. "It's something we've been preparing for. But it's still so tough when you get the news."
Barry Cowsill made local news about a year ago, when he was cited for leaving harassing phone calls to former U.S. Rep. Fernand St. Germain. Cowsill had dated St. Germain's daughter Lisette. Cowsill pleaded not guilty and a judge filed the case, removing it from his record if Cowsill was not arrested in the next year.
Lisette St Germain said late last year that her father held no grudge after the incident. Friends attributed the episode to drunken foolishness.
Richard Cowsill, who moved from Middletown to New Mexico last year, said he believes his brother died not long after leaving that Sept. 3 cell-phone message.
"I think he's been dead for quite some time," he said. "I've been grieving for a while. But I know I'll cry and it is so sad. Frankly, since September, I've pretty much been consumed by it."
There will be no funeral, memorial service or wake. Bob and Richard Cowsill said their brother's ashes will be scattered in Newport - possibly on the grounds of Halidon Hall, their childhood home - and that Barry Cowsill often talked of wanting a party instead of a funeral. "That was more Barry's style," Bob Cowsill said.
Barry Cowsill's death, Bob said, carries a certain sad irony following a turbulent life:" Going out in a hurricane ... . It's almost poetic."
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