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Rock-Band theme songs went out with the Monkees, but you wouldn't know that when Susan Cowsill of the Continental Drifters steps to the microphone for "Someday." It sounds like she's singing about the very reasons for her band and its work.
"I'm gonna pay my bills and stand where I stand," she sings, "and maybe even start a little rock 'n' roll band. And maybe my friends will give me a hand. And if that doesn't take away my sorrow, I'm gonna get up again and do it tomorrow."
Eyes closed, she holds the last not - bathed in the supportive harmonies of Peter Holsapple and Vicki Peterson.
The New Orleans-based Drifters are a hidden treasure, a rock band for adults, with three gifted singers and songwriters who have persevered despite music-business indifference and personal trauma.
The group pushes on, it seems, because its six members need music more than music needs them.
"You often call this band your reward," Holsapple said, looking at colleague Mark Walton, "and I see it in the same way.
"We've got nothing to retire to, frankly, and this is the kind of job you do until you die because it does all the right things for your internal organs."
"The downside," drawled guitarist Robert Mache, "is we're not going to draw Social Security from this."
Holsapple played with the dBs, a critical favorite in the 1980s, and toured as a side played for R.E.M. During 1995 and '96, he was a touring member of Hootie and the Blowfish.
Peterson was - and is - a Bangle. Cowsill grew up in an eponymous family act (remember "The Rain, the Park and Other Things"?). Walton was in the Dream Syndicate, and Mache played in Steve Wynn Band. Drummer Russ Broussard completes the lineup.
Because of that past (and future; Peterson is recording a new album with the Bangles), the Continental Drifters are still nagged by the perception that the band is a place to bide time while waiting for something else.
"We do other things and that somehow is used to imply that we're not serious about this," Cowsill said, "and it's ridiculous."
Their music fits into the loosely defined Americana genre, but they're essentially the sort of mainstream rock band that was commonplace a couple of decades ago but rarer today.
Having three distinct voices and viewpoints sets them apart. So does the sound when those voices blend.
"You would think that any fundamentally tasteful person would understand the concept of the Continental Drifters," Holsapple said. "We see this as an embarrassment of riches in a lot of different ways."
The band drifted together a decade ago in Los Angeles informally, as a group of friends who gathered once a week to play each other's songs.
Even after moving to New Orleans, band members kept an informal, family atmosphere.
In an industry that prizes total dedication, the Drifters have lives. The band members' careers have undoubtedly been hurt by an unwillingness to spend most of the year on the road.
They want more balance, and they've achieved it.
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