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A group of siblings in matching stagewear tour the country with their mom, singing their pop hits.
"The Partridge Family," right?
On TV, yes. But there was a real-life inspiration for the fictional Partridges.
The Cowsills were the real thing: a touring, recording family who put out real hits.
One of the toothy clan's biggest was "Hair," which went to No. 2 in 1969 and raised more than a few eyebrows - a squeaky-clean family act covering a song from a counter-culture musical.
Three reunited surviving Cowsills - Bob, Paul and Susan - are set to perform on Thursday in Bethlehem.
Susan - the youngest Cowsill and the only sister in the act - sang the immortal lyric "and spaghetti" in "Hair" (to her chagrin). Susan had her share of life's trials: a mercurial stage father; the untimely deaths of three brothers, Barry, Bill and Richard Cowsill; and devastating property loss in Hurricane Katrina. But Susan, like the sunny stage persona she honed from childhood, remains upbeat.
"I'm not one to look at things negatively," she says.
Susan was not an original member of the vocal group, which she joined at age 8.
"I bullied my way into the band," she said. "I would beg, borrow and steal, do laundry, whatever it took. I saw all the fun my brothers were having, and I wanted in. Although, they didn't want me at first, because I was the creepy, little sister."
"Hair" was inspired by the hippie movement of the 1960s. It was the time of "flower power," psychedelia, Vietnam. Young though she was, Susan says she knew what was going on.
"I was incredibly aware of that movement," she says.
"I wished I was older; I would have been in it. Because I became a hippie at 9. I decided that's what I would be. I knew I was a little bit young for it. I said, 'I'm just gonna kick it back here with these people.' "
How did Susan reinvent herself as a hippie at age 9?
"I think I was simply paying attention to the energy and focus of these kinds of people," she says.
"It was more appealing to me than worrying about corporations and the state of the country. Plus, it was easy; I had brothers. My oldest brother (Bill) was a bona fide. That's not something you choose. You don't just say, 'I think I will take on the hippie mentality.' It just fit. It still fits. I'm still a hippie. Don't tell anyone."
Susan calls her late father Bud Cowsill, who managed the band, an "ill-equipped parent." Bud would, to say the least, clash with Susan's brothers over the band. Did this stress Susan out?
"I just needed to know where I was supposed to be, how long I was supposed to play, and where I was gonna play next, to get the most fun out of it," she says. "There was plenty of things to stress me out: show business was not it. I was only 8. All I cared about was: Does the motel have a pool?"
It's a well-known, and tragic, phenomenon that many child stars went on to have difficult lives. Some say that had "interrupted childhoods." But Susan says this wasn't true in her case.
"I wouldn't call it an interrupted childhood so much as a different lifestyle," the singer says.
"I understnad the concept. Was I in the Brownies or the Girl Scouts? Did I go to the dances? No. It's not your regular thing. But so much of it was truly a blast. It was an alternative childhood lifestyle. Part of me laments not having a lot of the things other people had. But a big part of me says, 'How cool for you, that you had this adventure.'
"When people say, 'Was it a weird childhood?' I say, 'It was my childhood.' I only had one."
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