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One of the highlights of summer, the "Happy Together Tour," came to Kettering's Fraze Pavilion on Aug. 28, just in time to wrap up the sunny season. The lineup changes year to year, but the staples remain - this year's lineup included The Turtles, featuring Flo and Eddie, who started the Happy Together concerts back in 1984 and revived the idea in 2010.
CityBeat spoke with two of the show's stars, Ron Dante, who takes over vocal duties for The Turtles and has a story all his own, and Bob Cowsill, who is a founding member of the hit-making family band The Cowsills that inspired The Partridge Family TV show.
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Bob Cowsill recalls one of these kinds of shows early in the band's career. "We did play Yankee Stadium with Stevie Wonder and The Beach Boys in 1966 in a show called 'Sound Blast! '66' (which also featured Ray Charles, The Byrds, The McCoys and others) and The Cowsills are on the poster that says 'The Cowsills who?'" he says with a laugh.
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The night starts with one of the cornerstones of the tour, The Cowsills, who start things off on a high note with a kick of energy and one of the most recognizable, dreamy and perfect pop songs of all time, "The Rain, The Park and Other Things." The pop symphony with a lush layer of dreamy vocals, strings, sweeping harp and huge production, all juxtaposed by hard-hitting drums and its soaring "I love the flower girl" chorus is the perfect song to set a tone for what's to come.
The group, made up of siblings Susan, Paul and Bob Cowsill for these shows, is backed by the tour's tight house band that powers through hits like "Indian Lake" and "Hair" with smiles on their faces, seemingly having the time of their lives.
Bob Cowsill tells CityBeat they're glad to kick each show. "We love getting to the audience first. We're kind of nutty and we bounce around. We're the party group and to get the party going, we open it with a lot of energy."
Bob Cowsill recalls a time when they played with Paul Revere & the Raiders and The Buckinghams when he was a kid. "We were young and innocent and controlled by our parents and did nothing on the road, and we watched Paul Revere & the Raiders and The Buckinghams have all this fun on the road." He says that it all worked out and they're glad to meet everybody these days and have some fun.
The audience is primarily of a certain age and from the same generation as the music, but there are some younger people there as well. Bob Cowsill brings up an interesting point about how current younger generations like older music. "For some reason, you guys had room in your heads for other (stuff), like our stuff, too. We didn't do that. We just had our stuff - we weren't headphoning Frank Sinatra," he said. "All of our kids love these songs and now we're learning, with the Happy Together tour, the best example of the magic of why all that is and how good those songs still are and will be forever."
The Cowsills are still a family band. In the winter, they perform full shows around the country and on cruises with the next generation of the family filling out the band. "We're just all still at it and grateful for it. We get to live the magic of the Happy Together Tour. That audience, it's a love fest, I gotta tell you. It's just beautiful and then the challenge of the winter, the cruises and the fun shows we do there, it's amazing. We're very grateful we're still here and having a good time."
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Hearing great singing stars do their major hits beautifully is a real joy each night. Standing in the wings listening to Garry Puckett, Little Anthony, The Vogues and The Cowsills, along with the incredible Jay and the Americans, is a dream come true. The audiences have been singing along with every hit and cheering us on every show. I will forever remember doing the Happy Together tour."
Everyone comes back out one by one for a medley of the night for the finale before wrapping up with the tour's namesake, "Happy Together" by The Turtles, and a final bow standing side by side and hand in hand. Bob Cowsill tells CityBeat about the feeling of being on stage for the finale. "It's historic, in a way. We all hold hands at the end. Sometimes I'm holding Little Anthony's hand and I'm going, 'How am I into my life in front of these people holding this man's hand?' I never would have predicted an event like that through all the decades before it happened and that's the magic of life and hanging in long enough and being around to experience it. It is unbelievable, I gotta tell you."
The music ends with spirits high for a fitting end to summer.
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