|
For Peter Holsapple and Susan Cowsill, it was love at first song.
He, the former leader of pop-rock cult favorites the dB's, and she, of the Cowsills - the family band that was the inspiration for TV's "Partridge Family" - make music together in various guises, most often with the superb roots 'n' pop outfit called the Continental Drifters.
"We had a total musical courtship," Cowsill says.
She was onstage with the Cowsills when Holsapple first spied his bride. Their first "date" was in a recording studio.
"I knew right away when I first met him that I was going to marry him," she says. "I knew that we were supposed to be together, but I just didn't know which lifetime."
"I knew our voices would sound great together," he says. "It turned into a wonderful musical chemistry."
Though each usually has a part in the other's musical projects, they have always retreated to separate corners at songwriting time. But after collaborating on a baby named Miranda, they've started doing the same on tunes. If their musical banter is anything like their usual repartee, look for a hit soon.
"If we don't kill each other in the process," she says.
"Neither one of us is a particularly skilled co-writer," he says diplomatically.
"Musically we're very aligned. It's the details that cause problems," she says.
"It's kind of like playing Monopoly," she says, "and looking at your partner and going, 'How much money do you have over there? I hate to do this, but I'm evicting you.'
"The whole idea is never go to bed mad. Right honey?"
"I think that's the co-writing rule from Dear Abby," he says.
"That's also a rule in our marriage," she says. "We agree to disagree and call it a night."
When it's show time, they give notice that they're getting into what they call "gig head."
Explains Cowsill, "You're starting to think about the show, you're going through your particular business, and the other one is saying, 'You're not paying attention to me. Are you made at me?'" Gig head warnings keep egos from being bruised by neglect. "It makes a bigger relationship," Cowsill says.
"We've pretty much agreed that in our marriage we're going to disagree for 40 years," Holsapple says. "When you're coming from that angle, being married and making music, it's so much easier to blow stuff off. 'Cause it usually doesn't matter, does it?"
|
