' The Cowsills - Newspaper Articles

Newspaper Articles





David Cassidy's Return to TV Has Us Recalling Other Singing Families: An Old Partridge Resurfaces, but What About the Cowsills and the DeFrancos?
By Robert Philpot
July 18, 2009
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Fort Worth, Texas

We're not sure what makes us feel older -- that former Partridge Family heartthrob David Cassidy is pushing 60, or that his new ABC Family show, Ruby & the Rockits, is his first regular TV-series gig since 1978's David Cassidy -- Man Undercover, in which he played not David Cassidy but Dan Shay, a young undercover cop.

. . .

The Cowsills

The family: Brothers Bill, Bob, Paul, Barry and John Cowsill; younger sister Susan; and mother Barbara. Credited as the inspiration for The Partridge Family.

Biggest hits: Their first, 1967's The Rain, the Park & Other Things, and their last, 1969's Hair, both peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Family style: Imagine the Summer of Love if it were dominated by clean-cut kids instead of drug-taking hippies.

Where they are now: Bob Cowsill lives in Southern California with his family and still writes and performs. He also works in the medical industry helping to train emergency departments on software that he helped develop. Paul Cowsill lives on an Oregon farm with his family. John Cowsill has been married to Vicki Peterson, the lead guitarist for the Bangles, since October 2003 and lives with her in Southern California. Susan Cowsill is good friends with Peterson, and both were members of the New Orleans-based band Continental Drifters, which also included Susan's current husband, Russ Broussard. Susan also recorded a 2005 solo album, Just Believe It, that's available at www.susancowsill.com (where you can hear some of her music) and at Amazon.com. Some of the siblings still perform as the Cowsills.

Barbara Cowsill died of emphysema in January 1985. (Patriarch Bud, who managed the band but didn't perform, died of leukemia in September 1992.) Barry Cowsill, who lived in New Orleans, went missing for four months after Hurricane Katrina until his body was discovered and identified Dec. 28, 2005 (he would have been 51 on Sept. 14 of that year). Less than two months later, William (Bill) Cowsill died of emphysema at age 58 in February 2006.

. . .




Email Me Home