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Over the phone from Vancouver, Billy Cowsill is expressing concern over the latest trend of raiding the musical vaults.
"Is nothing sacred?" he asked in credulously about Sawyer Brown's treatment of the George Jones chestnut "The Race Is On". "I mean, there ain't nothin' broke with that song, man!"
There's no doubt that Cowsill isn't one to tamper with tradition. His latest band, Blue Shadows, scheduled for the Sidetrack August 18-21, lends more than a tributary ear to the feel of bygone nuggets on their debut On the Floor of Heaven. By sifting through the slit in the musical bedrock, Cowsill, guitarist-partner Jeffrey Hatcher (ex of The Big Beat), bassist Elmar Spanier and drummer Jay Johnson have managed to capture the innocence and intensity of a bygone era in country and rock 'n' roll. Although all the material is self-penned, it doesn't take a retro buff to detect strains of Hank Williams and Beatles riffs, topped with Everly Brothers-type harmonies.
"We actually feel we're in good company with a comparison like that," said Cowsill. "Our influences are quite apparent."
They may allegorically refer to their new CD as "Hank goes to the Cavern Club" (the Liverpudlian watering hole where the Fab Four got their start), but there's no emulative posturing or "unplugged" band-wagoneering here. By tracing their steps back to the '50s and '60s, they've unearthed crevices previously unexplored and, obvious influences notwithstanding, have come up with something arguably original.
"The whole deal with this album was in fact, essence, spirit and energy as opposed to super tech or this or that," Cowsill said. "We just did what we did because that's what it felt good doing."
Cowsill, 45, has had a reputation for following his heart instead of his head ever since he shuffed the teen idol coil as a singer in the famed '60s bubble gum family outfit The Cowsills. Raised as a kid on the music of George Jones and Patsy Cline, he turned to country at a time when it was anything but all the rage. In the '70s, he ventured to Los Angeles to work with Harry Nillson, veered west to Oklahoma and jammed with J.J. Cale, and then headed south to Texas, where he hung out with Joe Ely.
"I've been on a veritable odyssey," he commented. "Ulysses has nothing on me."
He did get a break in the '80s when Polgram signed his group Blue Northern, but it was a brief bounce. By now a Vancouverite, Cowsill tried to make a name for himself in a region that was the furthest point one could imagine from Nashville's star-spangled snazziness, but he was barely scraping by. Reduced to playing covers in a band that bore his own name, he ran into k.d. lang's manager Larry Wanagus, who started handling his affairs. Wanagus was also trying to shop a deal for Toronto group Jeffery Hatcher and the Big Beat and it was when a guitar vacancy occurred in Cowsill's band that the manager put the two musicians together.
"Jeff asked Larry for an audition," recalled Cowsill, who put the guitarist, ten years his junior, through the paces by having him play some Beatles covers. "My hair just stood on end because it was just band on. We didn't rehearse anything, but he'd listened as close as I had, and done his homework, to all those old recordings so you get the essence of them."
Instant chemistry lead to songwriting stints and a Sony deal. Undeniable a country band with a lot of label support in this country, Blue Shadows for now have to deal with being on the fringe of the mainstream.
"We went down to Nashville and did a showcase it was like half the people going 'Yeah!' and the other half going 'Huh? What's that, Martha?' So we kind of scared Nashville a little bit."
That trepidation hasn't shaken their faith. Regardless of how far their conviction takes them, Cowsill will continue sticking to one credo: "If it ain't rockin', it just ain't right."
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