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Scoot: I remember listening to this as a kid. It was a major hit in America. It’s The Cowsills and Susan Cowsill today on her 60th birthday joins us in the studio. Susan what are your thoughts now as you hear that song?
Susan. Awww I’m trying not to cry. I really am. And honestly that doesn’t happen a whole lot anymore, but today is a slightly tender day. It’s wonderful. How are you? I’m more excited to just be sitting right here.
Scoot: We’ve talked about this a lot. We’ve run into each other a few different places, a few different times and quite often I get text from Susan on my personal phone commenting on show so I’m glad to have you here. I just want to talk about the ‘60s. I want to talk about what you witnessed and what you saw that generation, that wild rebellious generation from the ‘60s is now the establishment and in some ways they’ve changed. And what … every young generation is defined by the music that it makes popular. If you look back at the ‘60s there was just so much that was rich and colorful about the ‘60s generation in terms of in music and fashion. In terms of attitude. I’ve told you a couple times recently when I’ve run into you, and I’ll tell you this again as you sit here, and I’ll tell the audience, that when I look toward you that are a hippie. You’re still a hippie.
Susan: I am
Scoot: I mean you’re like a flower girl that (can’t understand) flop. Flowers in her hair.
Susan: Look, some things you can’t fake.
Scoot: And you can’t fake this.
Susan: No, and it’s interesting because I think the hippie thing is more of a philosophy more than anything which also drips over into our clothing because philosophically it’s about a freer way of feeling, thinking and being. And in hopes of that guiding toward goodness and light. That being, I believe, the theme of the hippie, the original theme of hippie.
Scoot: And there are people today who are young, but they are hippies
Susan: Absolutely
Scoot: Hippie transcends the ‘60s
Susan: I does now. I mean everything kind of comes and goes as we know and I’ll be honest with you. OK so it’s 1968 and I’m walking around the house like I am and one of my brothers says to me at that time, “What do you think you are? A hippie?” And I’m like, “What are you even talking about?” I didn’t even know what he meant. And then he proceeded to tell me that my time, the age I was born in, and all this stuff is why I couldn’t be one at 8. And I’m like, “Well, ummm that.” And I think maybe that lite a fire under me to never let go of what I felt. That’s what it meant to me.
Scoot: So let’s talk about touring with your brothers. And you’re still doing it today. We’ll talk momentarily about the Happy Together Tour which kicks off again. I talked to you guys after the show last year in Biloxi. What is it like touring with your brothers today having gone through that a long time ago?
Susan: Well it’s very different today on account of A) they like me and they didn’t when I was little because I was ruining their rock star – Rolling Stones/Beatles concept of themselves
Scoot: Because you were young
Susan: Because I as a girl and their sister in their rock band. So they hated my guts for being, making them uncool. And I thought to myself, “Well Mom coming in. How did I rate uncool coming in when you had your Mother in your band.” But whatever with that. No seriously, prospectively speaking, back in the day it was kind of a phenomenon for me. I was so young. I can honestly say that my first gigs I thought that the audience was my cousins. Cuz it was like a 300 seater and we have a lot – I’m Irish Catholic – there’s just forty-five thousand in one little pocket in Rhode Island and they all knew my name and calling to me and my brothers. And I ask my Mom if they were our cousins. So, my earlier days on the road were – on stage and out with the guys – was just like being home only they took baths and they acted really super charming all the time as opposed to gross and disgusting like they actually were. Now, they are gentlemen, fastly approaching their 70s and they are about the cutest things I’ve ever seen. And I’m all that is left so they hang on to me like somebody would a life raft in the middle of the Mississippi.
Scoot: For those who don’t know, your family – the real life family The Cowsills – were the inspiration for The Partridge Family.
Susan: 100% That show, I think Screen Gems and all those guys saw us on Sullivan and it took them a couple of years to kind of create this project that they wanted to make a TV series about the family band with the Mom and the kids in it and for us – The Cowsills – they came out to our home. They stayed with us for a couple of weeks and decided that the brothers – by this point two years later – growing into awkward and unpleasant. My oldest brother had already started hanging out with Brian Wilson and Harry Neilson so things were getting murky there. And we weren’t exactly that anymore. However, and I say this .. I have a video clip of it and I’m going to bring it out on the Happy Together Tour to put up on the screen, cuz on a documentary for The Partridge Family I heard one of the writers say Sherwood Forest or whatever that guy was who did all that Brady Bunch thing … he said, “The little girl was adorable and we wanted her but the brothers were stick figures.”
Scoot: I guess that was kind of revenge for you because they didn’t like you then.
Susan: I mention it ever night on the Happy Together Tour. It’s my one moment with those boys. It’s wonderful to be out with them. It’s a miracle that we’re out. We’re having a last wave that we didn’t expect in Cowsill-land.
Scoot: So first of all let’s talk about the Happy Together Tour. Who’s going to be there this time around.
Susan: This year we have, obviously, The Turtles and they are the Happy Together leaders of the ring. And we have The Cowsills, Gary Puckett. We’ve got Ron Dante – he sang “Sugar, Sugar” and “Bang Shang-a-lang” less we forget. We have The Buckinghams
Scoot: The Buckinghams
Susan: Yes
Scoot: Wow I remember … I was growing up as a young teen. I loved them.
Susan: The Bucks are amazing. Dennis Tufano is the original lead singer and he won’t be joining them and he’s kind of my BFF, but the Bucks are still great because they sing those wonderful songs and Carl and Nick pull it off with gusto.
Scoot: “Don’t You Care” by The Buckinghams
Susan: Yeah, they were Chicago. They were like little bluesy boys but they were babies. They were like 19-years-old, yeah.
Scoot: So, The Turtles
Susan: Oh and Chuck Negron. He’s one of our bus pals and you love him.
Scoot: Chuck was one of the lead singers of Three Dog Night. He went through a lot. He went through a lot with drugs and alcohol and he’s lucky to be alive. In fact I’ve talked to Chuck on the air here and I’ll get him back on the air for that but he’s amazing and he still sounds good and when he belting out like “One” some of those classic Three Dog Night hits.
Susan: Eli’s Coming
Scoot: Eli’s Coming
Susan: And here’s the miracle of Chuck. I call him The Chief. Chuck, he has a piece of one lung that is like completely functional and the rest he has not. So the glasses you see Chuck wearing on stage has oxygen. They are oxygenated glasses though tubes run around the outsides, they run down the back, and that little cord that you see coming out of his pocket, that looks like a guitar cord, that’s super long and goes to the side of the stage is his oxygen cord, covered in guitar cord material making him look like the rock star that he is.
Scoot: Wow
Susan: And nobody knows that he could not be doing that without his oxygen.
Scoot: And nobody knows till now.
Susan: No, he tells now. Last year he … oh I busted him long before he needed to understand that he is our Chief and he leads by example and it’s OK to rock.
Scoot: Do you want to bust any other secrets that any of these people might have?
Susan: Oh I got so many. Scoot, can we get a little mini-series going. I’d like to discuss an ongoing
Scoot: We should do an ongoing video podcast.
Susan: I’m in
Scoot: And we could just start. Each one could be a different story.
Susan: Well the thing is, I can tell you the dead people stories now because they are not here and I can elude to other stories about currently alive but ummm time ticking and then we can like . . .
Scoot: Let’s talk about one tough thing you guys had to deal with. You lost your brother.
Susan: Yeah, Barry Cowsill Barry Steven Cowsill. He moved to New Orleans before I did and then I followed him which pissed him off because he was a kooky little kid. He was one of the most amazing song writers you’ll ever, ever hear from. He was a character. I don’t know if you ever met him, some of the folks in this building have. And Barry decided to stay behind after Katrina which was a really ridiculous idea, one of many he would go with. And he ended up in the Mississippi. Somehow he made it through the storm, but he sent me several messages on Wednesday after and my phone started working that Wednesday. By Thursday he didn’t call back. We looked for him for about six months and we were fortunate enough to be famous to be on Entertainment Tonight, CNN and look for him effectively but it wasn’t because he wasn’t out there. And December after Katrina my brother had given some DNA to “Let’s get her done” cuz it was kind of tearing everybody up and we found him and I will tell you – it’s how many years later – and it is truly a tragic story but one that the guy would have written for himself and prayed
Scoot: And you’re together without him. But when we come back I want to talk about your impression as a pre-teen and then as a teenager of the ‘60s and the fashion. You look like you just walked in from a commune.
Susan: I’m starting one. I was going to talk to you. I know you live in …. I don’t like you in the Quarter anymore. We’ll talk.
Scoot: Alright here’s The Buckinghams. This is one of the bands that is going to be on the Happy Together Tour coming up. Next month. It starts next month?
Susan: Oh it starts June 7th
Scoot: And when are you going to be in Biloxi?
Susan: June 7th
Scoot: June 7th
Susan: Oh I’m sorry it starts the 28th.
Scoot: OK May 28th
Susan: Yeah but June 7th at Biloxi with these guys.
Scoot: Buckinghams. This brings me back to my childhood.
Susan: Your childhood? How old are you?
Scoot: I’m even older than you
Susan: No you’re not. You guys should see what I’m looking at. Bunch of BS
Scoot: You bet. On WWL
Song: Indian Lake
Scoot: Alright this goes back to 1968. This was another Top 10 hit by The Cowsills. And Susan Cowsill is in the studio with me and we’re talking the 1968
Susan: Imagine that.
Scoot: And music and fashion and all that. Alright I guess I’m wrong … I’m getting text telling me to do the math – you were not really a teenager in the 1960s. I mean you started to get close to being a teenager toward the end of the ‘60s, right?
Susan: Let’s hold on here. I was born 30 so I have to do my own math. So teenager in the ‘60s, I mean I was in my band. I started when I was eight. I’m an adolescent. I retired the first time when I was 12, one year short of teen. Are we really going to split hairs like this Scoot?
Scoot: I don’t care. I’m just responding to text.
Susan: Are we getting calls. Well we’re not going to take too many texts during this segment.
Scoot: Obviously people are looking for reasons to find fault. Let’s talk briefly about what you observed as a young person as a preteen/teenager. Tell me what you remember about that because we all have a vision of what we think it was like, but what was it like for you as a kid? I mean did you see boys that you liked, that you were attracted to? Did you want to have a boyfriend?
Susan: God yes OK so the life that was happening and unfolding, we moved from Rhode Island to Brentwood, California. We were literally The Beverly Hillbillies on every level so loaded up the truck. I got a swimming pool and tennis court and two bikes. About a year before we could only drink certain amounts of the milk in the frig, so this life-style was very, very different. I was an incredible hyper-vigilant little kid so I will, no more than people will expect me to know about these years. Look I was on Ed Sullivan in 1967 with Bobbie Gentry. Ode to Billy Joe I don’t know if it was my personality or just the fact that things were so hoppin’ in my world from 8 on that I was very aware of what was up. And I was involved in the un-rest of the country. I remember my mother sitting on the bed crying over JFK. I remember coming home from school … we did a brief stint in Manhattan before we moved to Brentwood so it’s ’67 in Manhattan and was that Martin Luther’s year? Was he….
Scoot: ‘68
Susan: OK so we were getting ready to leave but we were still in New York and the day he died there was a riot on our way home from school. And I got . . . my brother had to pick me up because a bottle broke by my foot and cut my foot. Now I had a memory of running from school and getting my foot cut but I didn’t know what it was for many years. I couldn’t remember it. And Paul had reminded me. We were running from the Martin Luther King riot. The vibe at that time, you know the unrest, the upheaval, the young people getting angry and wanting to do something about it in the name of peace. And in the name of love are today . . .
Scoot: And I’ve always theorized the baby-boomer generation, the seeds were actually planted when Kennedy was assassinated. Because Kennedy was assassinated three months before the Beatles arrived in America. And back then parents didn’t talk to their kids about what they were seeing on the news because they thought we weren’t paying attention. We were paying attention.
Susan: Without a doubt we were paying attention. I wanted to know and I remember my mother “Don’t, no. It’s not for you.” It is for me. My whole world. Look at all of you. What do you think we’re doing, you know.
Scoot: As in that set the tone for this generation suddenly, unconsciously lost faith in the establishment, seeing the president of the United States murdered. It’s like OK we’re different and now we’re going to show it and The Beatles came along at the right time.
Susan: Absolutely. The whole and that’s just the universe speaking for, helping itself along I feel. And it’s happening again y’all. The kids are getting angry. They are losing their friends at school. They’re . . .it’s happening again.
Scoot: Alright. We have to be reminded of some of the things that are happening now with the news but we’ll be back with more Susan Cowsill. We’ll be back on WWL. (Break and song We Can Fly and Hair) This is the title track from the rock musical Hair. This was a major hit for the Cowsills in what? 1967?
Susan: No we are now . . .
Scoot: ’69? ’68?
Susan: Is that right? No wait We Can Fly …. ’69 it might be ’68 We did a lot in the big crunch.
Scoot: But this was a major. You had the commercial hit on this song from the rock opera. I remember hearing this on my little transistor radio.
Susan: We did. Correct. And that was happening a lot with the local, local bands ha, the hot bands like the 5th Dimension. They did “ Let the Sun Shine In”. “Jean”
Scoot: Let’s crank this up just for a second.
Susan: Let’s rock it out. (Hair played)
Scoot: And Hair was controversial. Long hair in fact it was on this day in 1971, I mentioned this earlier in the show, that Peter Cetera of Chicago was beaten up by several men after a baseball game because they didn’t like his long hair.
Susan: You’re kidding
Scoot: So it was, it was a big deal. So I understand that Carl Reiner, the writer/director heard a soundtrack of Hair and sent the soundtrack to you guys and wanted The Cowsills to do this song and you did.
Susan: You are amazing that you know that. That’s genius. Yes, Carl came to … there was a TV show – 2 hour TV special cuz that’s how they rolled it out back in those day – I think it was NBC.
Carl was doing a show called Wonderful World of Pizzazz about pop culture, fashion, etc. etc. etc. And he thought it would be pretty funny if The Cowsills came on his show singing this song modeling wigs from Japan and hippie clothes. So the funny part, the hippie part is at home we were, but then we would put on our Cowsill clothes and kind of clean it up a little bit and become more wholesome. So he thought it would be a dichotomy. Ha Ha, which it was but the ha ha ha was this. So we recorded that just for that TV show. My brothers produced it. They played all the instrum…. That’s my brother Barry at 12 or something like that playing that bass line all and just an amazing recording. MGM would not allow my brothers to put it out. We came to them, took a meeting, can we please make this our next single? Oh absolutely not. This is not Cowsill. It’s nice you’re doing that, promotes our records, that’s cool, but no.
Scoot: Because it was controversial
Susan: It was. We had to … well when we finally got it out we had to cut out a verse talking about Mary loving Jesus. It was not OK to have Mary love Jesus and his hair maybe not so much. But the bottom line was they said no to that song coming out. My brothers were so angry that when we were on tour that we went to Chicago WLS and my brothers went like this with a little disc and played .. can we play a game and ask your viewers who they think that is. Don’t say it’s us before we come on. They ran it that morning. Nobody knew who it was but it was a hit. And the old phrase, the switchboard lite up cuz there was one back then guys and they really did light up. And they had the had the things in them and the whole schlemiel. It lite up and MGM had to put that record out because it got release virally by my brothers on WLS because they were
Scoot: Great story
Susan: Oh you don’t know. The guys were like ‘Holy S***’ And now here we are and we can be those guys last hit.
Scoot: OK now are you still getting royalites from these songs?
Susan: We are starting to get royalties from these songs.
Scoot: What do you mean starting?
Susan: What I saying there is that we did not. We were part of the ‘60s package that you sign up for and you’re really young and you sign anything they give you because the industry was very very young back then. Tommy James It happen to a lot of us. We were all kids and they were signing away our lives. And listen on the contracts for my brothers it literally says that if .. these boys are of age to sign these things and then down below where they signed their names they have their names printed and their dates of birth where they are clearly not old enough to sign this thing. However we never got any money. Tom . . . It was in Dumb and Dumber, The Rain, the Park and Other Things, IKEA used our song for commercials All through the years nothing. We finally got a lawyer who would go pro bono with us and pick it up on the flip flop. Took him two and a half years to excavate that other people were getting our money that shouldn’t have. They no longer get it and we do now.
Scoot: Oh good. It wasn’t retroactive but at least you’re getting it now.
Susan: No, it was not retroactive.
Scoot: Well good. I’m glad your . . .
Susan: It’s wonderful. It’s a miracle. It’s all a miracle. As a 12-year-old I had a road boyfriend in Atlantic City. We played the Steel Pier for two weeks so we were actually in one place. And there was this one cute boy named Keith and he kept buying me stuff from all the carnival places and he was beautiful, curly blond hair.
Scoot: How old was he.
Susan: 12
Scoot: Oh OK I mean like a tour manager whose 45
Susan: No, that was my first boyfriend when I was 14. And I’m not kidding. So and I had my own household at 14. So we can talk about that on a different show.
Scoot: OK
Susan: And maybe I’ll get you my documentary so you can see about home life at my house. Things were not normal so there were no normal boyfriends and but the one time I tried to have a real normal boyfriend and have a date and be like a normal kid, we were actually home. I met a guy camping. Guy I think I was 10 and he was super cute and he was going to take me to a dance for our school but I had to have him come to the house and pick me up. My brother Paul … nobody showed up ever again so whatever with that. It’s all good.
Scoot: We’re talking to Susan Cowsill. Today is her birthday and she’s spending the afternoon with us.
Susan: I was happy to be here.
Scoot: We’ve been talking about doing this for a long time. She’s going to be a part of the Happy Together Tour. Once again The Cowsills will be a part of that with The Turtles and The Buckinghams and Gary Puckett and Chuck Negron from Three Dog Night and It’s going to be at the IP Casino in Biloxi on June 7th. I went last year and it was a blast. And I’ll be there again this year. So, let’s go back to 1964, just two months before the Beatles first appeared on America television, the Beatles held the top five spots on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Nobody has ever done that. Nobody is ever expected to do that again. Top five songs. In fact these songs were “Please, Please Me” was #5, “I Want To Hold Your Hand” was #4, “She Loves You” was #3, “Twist and Shout” was #2 and “Can’t Buy Me Love” was the #1 song in the country. They had five, but they had seven other songs on the Top 100. They had 12 songs on the Top 100 in April 1964. Two months after they arrived in America.
Susan: That’s amazing. How beautiful is that? That’s the whole world just going “YES”
Scoot: And here’s the other band that I remember that was right behind The Beatles, right on the tails of The Beatles coming to this country was the Dave Clark Five. And this was one of their big hits and Dave Clark was the lead singer and the drummer and that’s unusual. We got Fred Lablea now but this was unusual. This is one of those songs that was part of that early, early British invasion in ’64.
Susan: And he was super cute.
Scoot: I’m Scoot and my conversation with Susan Cowsill continues when we come back on WWL. (Break) This is Susan Cowsill in her solo career. It’s a song she did after Katrina. It’s called “Could This Be Home.” Tell me about the song.
Susan: I wrote this song while Russ and I, Russ is my drummer/husband/bestie. We were evacuated from our Kai Sadona for six months from home here in town and we were staying family and friends throughout Indiana, Nashville, Austin, Oregon and LA. We had pockets (tape appears to have broken here)
Scoot: (tape appears to have broken here) and home doesn’t necessarily always going to be a stable place and you have to find home where you are.
Susan: Agreed and starting off as a Navy brat and then becoming a touring brat and just being a brat in general. It’s true. It’s true and I left home when I was 12 and we’ll talk about that at another time. I left home and went to live with my brother but I didn’t get escorted or taken there by a parent. I left so home was me. I am home. I carry home here and have set them up everywhere I go. And very successfully I might add. And it’s all OK with me.
Scoot: So The Cowsills seemed like this very, very goody, goody band. Were drugs ever on the scene?
Susan: Not necessarily active on the Cowsill scene, but at the end yeah, my brother Billy got thrown out for smoking marijuana or from my Dad finding out in 1969 which left my brother Bob as the leader about three hours before we left for that summer tour and I’m not even kidding. And the Cowsills being goody, goody and wonderful and sunshine and America’s family has it’s dichotomic reality because as you will find out as we get to know each other, my father was a raging alcoholic and incredibly abusive cat. So home wasn’t safe. Stage was perfect for a safety zone and hence kind of leaving around 12. So it was very crazy out there for reasons for reasons that would not be . . . However, we smelled it everywhere we went and it was so much fun because we knew we were kind of cool if we were that close to the smell. We went to the film where to see the star of Jefferson Airplane and some of the people in the audience recognized us and started throwing bubblegum at us.
Scoot: Wow I wish I had a chorus in here to sing Happy Birthday but here is a birthday cake for you
Susan: Are you serious. Aww honey
Scoot: We’ll cut that us.
Susan: It’s got my name on it.
Scoot: I got to take a break here. We’re going to come right back here and wrap up with Susan Cowsill. I could go on and on. We’re going to do this again sometime.
Susan: I hope so.
Scoot: And Chuck Negron
Susan: The Chief
Scoot: One of the singers of Three Dog Night did this song. He’s going to be on the Happy Together Tour IP Casino, Biloxi, June 7th and tell you what, he sounds like this. And this guy did half of the cocaine in Peru. And he’s still alive. I’m Scoot with Susan Cowsill and we’ll be back on WWL. (Break) I’m getting text Susan that should make you feel really great. I’m getting text for people who say this is bring back memories. Bringing back …. Bringing me back to the seventh grade and I’ve got a text here that says “I’m falling in love with her all over again.” I mean look, at some point in my life, I had a crush on you.
Susan: Ohhhh $5 please We’ll talk about that later. Have a little fun.
Scoot: I’m about to run out of time. It’s been such a delight having you here.
Susan: Thank you so much
Scoot: We’ll do a video after the show which we’ll post on our Facebook page. WWL Radio Also put it on the SRTA Scoot Facebook page. But thank you for coming down. I also got a text do you .. wants to know if you remember playing The Lumber Yard in Mobile
Susan: Sure
Scoot: I remember I lived in Mobile for two years and I am lucky to be alive because I used to do The Lumber Yard and I think they ran out of Vodka when I was there. I still drove home across the Cosway. Across the bay. That is not good.
Susan: No, that was not. That’s for the days.
Scoot: You have been a delight. Thanks for the memories
Susan: I totally enjoyed it. I want to come back
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