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NEWPORT - The Cowsill family will hold a memorial service for Bill Cowsill on Saturday at 10 a.m. at St. Augustin's Church on Carroll Avenue.
Bill Cowsill died Feb. 17 in Canada, where he had lived for most of his adult life. He was 58. Bill Cowsill had battled emphysema and osteoporosis in the final years of his life, having struggled earlier with drugs and alcohol, according to family members.
The Cowsills, Newport-based national pop stars in the 1960s, learned of Bill's death on Feb. 18, during a memorial concert honoring brother Barry, whose body was found in New Orleans on Dec. 28. The Louisiana medical examiner's office ruled that Barry Cowsill drowned in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He was 51.
The family is inviting friends and old classmates of Bill Cowsill to attend the memorial service. The family will privately scatter his ashes off Alligator Rock near Indian Avenue in Middletown, where the family once lived.
Bill Cowsill lived 35 years in Vancouver, where he enjoyed success with his country-flavored band, The Blue Shadows. He lived most recently in Calgary. Friends in that city are holding a memorial show for Bill Cowsill, also this Saturday, as his family honors his life in Newport.
"That's OK," brother Bob Cowsill said by e-mail. "It's sort of poetic to be spreading his ashes here while they celebrate his life and contributions there."
Bill Cowsill's last visit to Newport was in 2000, one of the few times he had visited his old hometown as an adult. That year, all seven Cowsills performed at the Taste of Rhode Island festival at the Newport Yachting Center, the first musical sibling reunion in decades.
"That Taste of Rhode Island show was the last we all played together, so it has deep meaning for us now," Bob Cowsill wrote.
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