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Mark Twain derided the conception of Heaven where men stood around in nightgowns and sang harmony, because he believed humans were unable to tolerate the results for over three minutes here on earth.
For once, Twain was wrong, judging from the success of family singing groups like the Lennon Sisters, the King Family, the Stonemans and the Osmond Brothers.
Now from Newport, R.l., comes a unit of seven, The Cowsills, with a half-hour pilot called "A Family Thing," pre-empting The Ghost and Mrs. Muir at 8:30 this evening. And if there are no Twains in the audience, chances are The Cowsills will soon conduct a weekly tribal gathering on the tube.
The problem as papa Bud sees it is that people don't take the Cowsills seriously. Doors used to slam in his face when he sought bookings for his four sons including an 8-year-old on the drums and a 10-year-old on bass guitar. Still, the kids performed at universities like Princeton, Rutgers and Brown, facing cold stares for 30 minutes followed by applause from the toughest audience in the world.
With the addition of son John, Susan, age 8, and wife Barbara, the group broke the ice in '67 with guest shots on Ed Sullivan, a song called, "The Rain, the Park, and Other Things" which has sold over a million records, plus five good singles with titles like The Path of Love, We Can Fly, Indian Lake, and Poor Baby. Four days after the special, the family guests on The Jonathan Winters Show, they'll make two Hollywood Palace appearances and join the cast for January's special "The World of Pizzaz."
The kids are self-taught musically, with the oldest boy passing on information to the younger who watches for mistakes and make detours. Barbara, one of nine, ran the house when Bud was on destroyer duty in the Sixth Fleet, but insists she was under Cowsills command and merely relayed orders in his absence.
With an ear for natural harmony, the youngsters took to vocalizing as kind of a hobby, "group therapy," in Bud's words, and soon began experimenting with guitars, trumpets and drums. Wife Barbara joined in, believing if "they can do it, so can I."
The kids are still learning. Some write, some produce and all sing but one son, Dick, on Army duty in Vietnam, and all criticize with a flair that bothers Barbara a bit. At 16, Paul feels awkward on stage, and wants something to do with his hands, so he runs back and forth trying to learn the organ and piano. Susan plays the bass guitar the same way, learning while performing. "We don't have spit and polish," explains the Navy father, "instead there's a little realism."
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