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Vancouver is a long way from Newport, Rhode Island, and the Manhattan Ballroom of the Capri Hotel in Saskatoon is even farther away from an appearance on the old Ed Sullivan televisions program.
But that’s the distance Billy Cowsill has had to travel to avoid remaining rock and roll’s Peter Pan.
“I wanted to be a serious musician not just a candy-coated imitation,” said Cowsill, the 34-year-old native of Rhode Island who, together with his mother, sister and four brothers, catapulted to fame in the late sixties as the Cowsill Family, releasing a string of million-selling records, including The Rain in the Park and Other Things, Indian Lake and Hair, the theme song from the popular 1960s play of the same name.
Cowsill’s pursuit for serious recognition led him away from his in-house producing joby with RCA Records and through a decade of bar-room performances all over the continent.
The end of the decade found Cowsill and his guitar one-nighting it in the Northwest Territories, from where he eventually worked his way to Vancouver. Once there, he was invited through a mutual friend to sit in as a guest artist with a fledgeling local band, Blue Northern.
That was in 1979, and he’s never left. Since then, Cowsill, Keyboardist Jim Wilson of Oklahoma, fiddler Garry Comeau of Halifax, lead guitarist Ray O’Toole, bassist Biff Savage and drummer Brady Gustavson, all of Vancouver, have been slowly, but surely building a respectable following in this country.
The band’s first release in the summer of 1980, an EP appropriately titled Blue Northern, had two cuts reach the top 20; Can’t Make No Sense and Too Late to Turn Back Now, both written and sung by O’Toole.
The group’s follow-up release last autumn, an LP on Polygram records, again simply titled Blue Northern, sold well by Canadian standards: about 30,000 copies to date, complete with a top 30 hit, 100 Per Cent.
“We’re working on a five-year plan,” Cowsill said Saturday, just before completing the second of a two-night stint at the Capri Hotel here.
“It has to be a progression. The sales of our last release was very encouraging. It paid our bills and made a profit. And, let’s face it, that’s what this is all about.”
With another album in the works, which is set for release in the next three to four months, the band hopes its sound – self-described as basic rock, rooted in rhythm and blues – will bring it one step closer to the mass success Cowsill knew as a teenager.
“Success would be a million-selling record and a worldwide tour,” said Cowsill. “But we’re more into making music than worrying about success. If it comes, fine, but as long as we enjoy making music in the process, that’s what counts.
“Success is just a fringe benefit,” he added.
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