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On July 20th at 7 pm, Susan Cowsill and her band will perform at the Kewaskum High School Auditorium in a benefit concert for Brick by Brick for Tanzania! Inc. and the efforts to build preschools in Tanzania. In anticipation of that concert, I caught up to Susan with a few questions about her music, the concert and her storied past:
JDK: As a youth I was a huge Cowsill fan. Being roughly your age, I was especially smitten with you. I clipped all your milk advertisements and papered my wall with Teen Beat pix of you and your family. I even wrote you a gushing fan letter - which to my amazement - you persnally replied! One of my favorite Cowsill moments on record was when you sang out "And Spaghetti!" in the middle of "Hair." Given that your first exposure to America was as a child star, do you find that modern audiences halfway expect the elfin young girl who still holds the record for being the youngest artist to chart a Top Ten record?
Susan Cowsill: "I've had people come up to me and say, 'You're not that little girl, are you?' 'Well, actually...No.' I'm almost 50. But I was and actually I still am in many ways. I find overall that people are very open to my music now. I think any Cowsill fan likes anything that we do. It's all good stuff."
JDK: For audiences that may not have kept up with you during the last few decades, your recent CD, "Just Believe It" may seem to be a departure of sorts. For me, I consider it to be simply great, rootsy music. It's beautiflly earthy with a thread of truth that pulses through its very core. There is something so raw and earnest in your songwriting - not to mention your incredible voice! - that simply resonates with the listener. How did you come to record 'Just Believe It'?
Susan Cowsill: "How we came to make it was that Russ and I had been in a band, The Continental Drifters. Russ had been in for seven or eight years and I'd been in for about ten. And it was time to be done with that band for a myriad of different reasons so the band broke up and Russ I got together as a couple.
We wanted to take some time off, so we got dayjobs - in New Orleans on Bourbon street - that's a musicians dayjob where you go down and play on Bourbon Street and you do covers all day long. We did it from Thursdays to Sundays.
We did that for a couple of years - and it was a great experience actually. But then it became clear that it was time for us to get back on our horse. I was finally ready to make solo record. People had been asking me or telling me I should do it or whatever for years and I just wasn't ready. Before I was 30, I don't think I was ready.
I didn't even start writing songs til I was 30, so it became time. We made a commitment. We went bankrupt with that commitment, but hey, that's okay. We kind of just pulled together - I had a couple of songs that I had written years before, but most of them were freshly written for 'Just Believe It.' Russ and I started writing together and that's kind of how it came about - it was time, you know. It wasn't time any time before that for me. And there she is - 'Just Believe It.' "
JDK: Tell us of your interest in Tanzania and Brick by Brick by Tanzania!, Inc. When I first approached Russ (Broussard, Susan's husband and a formidible musical force in his own right having played with James Cotton, Terence Simien and the Bay City Rollers amongst others) and you over a year ago, it was obvious that you immediately understood the need and had the compassion and ability to reach out with your music to help. Tell us a bit about that?
Susan Cowsill: "As long as I've known Russ, he has had an almost cosmic connection to Africa. He's a drummer. He's just always had an affinity for the culture and land and everything - though he's never been there yet.
And he's shared that with me quite a bit.
We both have been musicians for most of our lives and there comes a point where music is great, accolades are awesome, but we both decided - especially with 'Just Believe It' - that we wanted to try to do something more.
We were even planning - after 'Just Believe It' came out - to start a foundation to try to reach out to a community or three that needed some inspiration or some help.
However, 'Just Believe It' came out just months after Katrina so a lot of plans didn't come to fruition. So when we heard from you - it was kind of just the right combination of what we were looking for. It just kind of got plopped in our laps. We had been involved in a lot of benefits for Katrina and been on the receiving end of benefits from Katrina, and it was a good time to reach out.
The other thing that caught Russ' attention was that 100% of the money goes to the cause - not 60, not 70, not 50, not 80, but 100% goes to the actuality. That is very appealing. That makes the work get done - but you know that, 'cause you're the Brick by Brick guy."
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