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It’s been nearly four months since Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans and ’60s pop icon Barry Cowsill is still missing.
Cowsill, 51, who with the rest of his singing family belted out their vintage hit “Hair” at Fenway Park during the epic Red Sox-Yankees 2004 ALCS showdown, disappeared from New Orleans when Katrina struck.
“Barry’s dental records were provided and they did not match any of the bodies in New Orleans,” said family friend and Boston music maven A.J. Wachtel. “So that’s good news.”
Barry’s brothers Bob and Richard have provided DNA samples but those tests are still pending.
“As the days go by and still no word, it just strikes me as stranger and stranger,” Wachtel said.
Deepening the mystery is a bizarre phone call on Halloween night to a Newport, R.I., recording studio that some think came from the missing Barry.
The Cowsills are Newport natives and Barry had been working on an album at Stagecraft Audio in the City by the Sea before moving to New Orleans. The hard-to-understand message seemed to say “You are never there, you. Never, never.”
While some relatives and friends believe the message was from the missing man, Barry’s brothers are not convinced.
“Why would Barry call a recording studio and not his kids,” Wachtel said. “And why didn’t the mysterious person says something like ‘Hey, It’s Barry, tell everyone I am O.K.’ ”
The Cowsills, who were the real-life basis for the TV show “The Partridge Family,” broke up in the early ’70s. (They reunited just over a year ago to belt out “Hair” in homage to Johnny Damon, Manny Ramirez, Bronson Arroyo and all the Fenway Follically Faithful - as well as their late mum, Barbara, who was a huge Red Sox fan.)
Since their heyday, Barry has had a rough ride. He battled substance-abuse problems and attempted suicide. On the day Katrina hit, he was due to fly to L.A. to enter rehab.
His family is convinced he survived the hurricane because sister, Susan, got a desperate phone call from him on Sept. 1. A man resembling Cowsill was seen in a CNN video taken outside the New Orleans Convention Center on Sept. 2. But no one has heard from him since.
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