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GAYLE SHOMER: AP
Members of the 1960s rock group the Cowsills pose for a photo backstage before a reunion concert in 1990. From left are Bob, Susan, John and Paul Cowsill.

It was only one word — and it’s not even a real word — but it put Susan Cowsill in the rock ’ n’ roll trivia books.

Who is the youngest person to perform on a Top 10 song?

In the late ’ 60s, the Cowsills family band was all over the radio. The group consisted of mother Barbara, her four sons and one daughter. Their biggest hit was the title song from Hair, the hippie play causing a ruckus on Broadway because there was some brief nudity onstage.

Here’s the chorus:

I want it long, straight, curly, fuzzy, snaggy, shaggy, ratty, matty
Oily, greasy, fleecy, shining, gleaming, streaming, flaxen, waxen
Knotted, polka-dotted, twisted, beaded, braided
Powered, flowered and confettied
Bangled, tangled, spangled and …
SPAGHETTI’D!

“That’s me. On my gravestone it will say, ‘Here lies Susan Cowsill and Spaghetti’d.’ It’s my legacy,” Cowsill said.

She was only 9 when the Cowsills began hitting the charts with hits like The Rain, the Park and Other Things, Indian Lake, We Can Fly and Hair.

On June 11, when the Susan Cowsill Band performs a free show at Discovery Green in downtown Houston, she will perform new original material, some covers of popular ’ 60s songs and, if the audience yells loudly enough, a few Cowsills hits.

“I will be happy to oblige. I think they’re terrific songs. I’m proud of them. I think most people will admit they enjoyed our music, unless they were into Jimi Hendrix. You have to know one thing, though. I just learned how to play the Cowsills songs. When I was little, I didn’t play an instrument, except for my fabulous tambourine. But now I know the chords, and I play them. So The Rain, the Park and Other Things could happen. I may even pull out Indian Lake,” she said.

“But I don’t know how to play Hair. So don’t anybody ask for that one.”

The Cowsills never had a hit past 1970, but Susan, now 50, never left the music business. She has provided backing vocals on more than 200 albums by artists as far-flung as Paul Simon, Carlene Carter, the Smithereens and Hootie and the Blowfish.

She still performs with the Cowsills, whose surviving members tour each summer. And she has her own group, the Susan Cowsill Band, that plays and records in her hometown New Orleans.

She moved to New Orleans about 16 years ago when she got married and started a family. “Los Angeles is nice, but it’s a concrete jungle. I’m never leaving New Orleans now.”

Her concert at Discovery Green will be special, she said, because it’s part of her Covered in Vinyl tour.

“The Susan Cowsill Band is a myriad of music. We are doing a Covered in Vinyl show for you. That’s when, in addition to the other songs, we take a classic rock album and play it. In Houston, we’re doing the Beatles’ Revolver from top to bottom.”

In case you see a similarity between the Cowsills and television’s The Partridge Family show — you know, mom and the kids form a rock band — it’s not a coincidence.

“The Partridge Family absolutely was the Cowsills,” she said. “That show was tailor-made and written for our family band. The producers came to live with us and watch how we did things. But by the time they developed it as a TV show, a few years had passed, and we were growing up. My brothers had become bona fide hippies.

“Plus they wanted a name actress to play the mother. My father nixed it right there. They also didn’t think we were very good actors, although my brother Barry and I were considered to play ourselves.”

The part of Susan (renamed Tracy on the show) went to 7-year-old Suzanne Crough.

“I love you, Suzanne, but she wasn’t very good as me. She had no rhythm. It’s hard to swing that tambourine. But she was as cute as a bug’s ear.”