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The Cowsill brothers at The Muenchinger-King Hotel with Bill and Bob on guitars and John and Barry behind them in red blazers. (Photos courtesy Bob Cowsill)

To make it big in the music business, one needs a work ethic, opportunity and luck. But without talent, the other things don't matter much.

In the 1960s, one Newport band, The Cowsills, rose to the top of the charts and reigned supreme for around five years, even inspiring the 1970s hit television show, "The Partridge Family." And they credit the musical opportunities they had in Newport as vital to launching their storied career.

Newport This Week wanted to take a look at the band's early Aquidneck Island years, before their five hit records and nonstop media exposure, so we reached out to founding member Bob Cowsill to learn more about the role Newport and Middletown played in their magical ride.

Most local folks are familiar with The Cowsills, the family band of a mother, her five sons and one daughter, whose rich harmonies, intuitive musicianship and wholesome good looks made them destined for 1960s stardom. Before there were The Jackson 5 and The Osmond Brothers, there was The Cowsills.

Through innumerable interviews and the 2011 documentary film, "Family Band: The Cowsills Story," one learns of their rise, fall and rebirth, and the millions made and lost during their wild journey with fame.

"We started at Dorian's (now the site of the Clarke Cooke House on Bannister's Wharf) in my junior and senior years at Middletown High School in 1966 and 1967," he said. "By that time, The Cowsills had been signed to two record labels and dropped from both. We had our four-piece band, with me and my brothers, Bill, Barry (who had moved from drums to bass) and John [on drums].

"Barry [age 9] and John [11] were too young to play at a club like Dorian's, but somehow our dad pulled off getting the O.K. At first, we had to have Barry and John set up the bass and drums upstairs in a room above the club, and somehow we piped them into the main room downstairs where, even though you only saw Bill and me on stage, you heard the foursome."

Local musician Ron Welby recalls that Dorian's was a great place in those early days. "The [Dorian's] crowd was always an interesting mix of people, from millionaires and fishermen to sailors and college students, and a few high school kids with fake IDs," he said.

Dorian's was a perfect fit for the quartet, who eventually added their mother and sister, and later, their brother, Paul.

"[It] was full of girls from Salve Regina and Vernon Court, and the sailors were there to meet them," Cowsill said. "We had a knack for playing The Beatles, and had learned all the British Invasion songs by then, and we got quite popular."

Playing rock 'n roll on Sundays was not allowed at Dorian's, so The Cowsills reverted to their folk music days. "That's one of the early times our mom joined Bill and me on stage," Cowsill said.

Dorian's was owned by David Ray, then in his 20s, who helped manage the group, along with Richard "Biggie" Korn.

"David was instrumental in taking Bannister's Wharf and turning it into the tourist attraction it is now after the Navy left town," Cowsill said. "To this day, we hear from some of those sailors and other folks on our website, saying they remember us and the good times they had at Dorian's while stationed in Newport."

The next stop on their local journey was The MK at the corner of Bellevue Avenue and Catherine Street, which is now an office building.

"That's where we met Biggie Korn (who later opened Yesterday's Restaurant in Washington Square)," Cowsill said. "He was The MK's bartender/ manager, and we always ended the night with the Rolling Stones' 'It's All Over Now,' and I remember we'd always extend the ending and shout, O.K., one more time for Biggie the bartender."

In a previously published interview, Cowsill explained how important The MK was to the band's ascent. "Our first real break came when we were playing The MK Hotel and a guy from 'The Today Show' saw us and asked us if we wanted to be on," he said. "We weren't famous or anything, but we were young, and we were related, and we were quite good. So, we went on 'The Today Show' and someone from Mercury Records saw us, which ultimately led to our getting signed."

The final stop on the Cowsills' Newport trifecta was The Bastille. In the Easton's Beach rotunda, it was a teen hot spot and hosted some notable bands. Local bassist Will Borges fondly recalls that his band, Bitter Sweet, opened there for the chart-topping Vanilla Fudge.

"No one our age ever came to Dorian's or The MK [due to age restrictions]," Cowsill "At The Bastille, they only served soft drinks and snacks, and it was the coolest place to play. We loved the roundness of it, and it was just so different than Dorians or The MK.

How did it all begin for The Cowsills?

"My very first live performance was the day I brought my guitar to school and sang 'All Day, All Night, Maryanne' to my third-grade class at St. Joseph's School," Cowsill said. "That's when we lived on Third Street, down by the Navy base. Bill and I had been playing guitar since the ages of 7 and 8, and by 12 and 13 we were performing. Our first paid performance was the Newport Women's Guild luncheon in 1962, where we made $10 each, and you would have thought we made $1,000 each."

Friends since they were in Cub Scouts together, where the band's matriarch, Barbara Cowsill, was the den leader, local guitarist John Flanders and Cowsill spent many afternoons trading guitar licks and gigging at the same local venues.

"Johnny was the best guitar player on the island and everyone knew it, including us, so we spent time on his front porch strumming together the way kids back then would," Cowsill said.

The Cowsills moved to Wapping Road in Middletown and started forming bands with their friends. "We got Bobby Nunes, who could play the drums, and formed a band with him and Bobby Mace, who lived down the street from us," Cowsill said. "We played [dances] regularly at the Boys Club [on Green End Avenue] from 1961 to 1963, and briefly formed an instrumental band with Bob "Stewkey" Antoni, who had much success with a group called The Nazz.

"We played all the hootenannies at Middletown High and Rogers High and . . . in the summers of '62 and '63, you could find us at Second Beach pretty much every day with our guitars, singing folk songs. A crowd would always gather 'round our blanket and it was all very fun," he said. "It was about that time that we added our brother, Barry, as our first drummer, as we were getting more hip to drums and the need to have a real, permanent band."

By 1967, the band had been dropped by two labels and had four releases that tanked. "Toward the end of my senior year at MHS, we got signed by MGM and we were going to get a third shot at this," Cowsill said. "They put us on a promotional tour [and] we flew in an airplane for the first time, and it was all so exciting.

"But, although we were hoping 'The Rain, The Park and Other Things' would be a hit record for us, we weren't naive at all. So, upon returning from that tour, we went right back to playing places where we loved to play, like The Bastille. In many ways, playing The Bastille after that tour was the funnest thing to happen to us, because we were home in familiar territory."

The surviving Cowsills siblings are still wowing audiences. John has been playing keyboards and drums with The Beach Boys for 20 years, and Bob, Susan and Paul, with some of their children now in the band, do dozens of shows a year as The Cowsills. They also have a weekly podcast launching soon and are releasing a new album, "Rhythm of the World," with 11 new songs and nine a cappella tunes, including a cappella versions of all their hits. I've heard some advance tracks and they are stellar.

I have been full circle with The Cowsills, from listening to their hits on the radio and watching them on The Ed Sullivan Show when I was a kid to seeing all the siblings perform at Taste of Rhode Island at the Newport Yachting Center years ago, where they invited Flanders onstage to play with them.

But my most eye-opening experiences were hearing just Bob and his son, Ryan, perform one night in the intimate setting of the Clarke Cooke House, the former site of Dorian's, where it all began, and seeing Susan alone at King Park's bandstand a few years back. The talent in this family is, quite simply, off the charts.

Even casual music historians will recall that The Beatles credited their nightly six-hour gigs in Hamburg, Germany during their early years with taking them from being a good band to an incredibly tight group by playing the same songs several times a night for months. And so it was with The Cowsills.

"By playing Dorian's and The MK, our band became, and still is, a great cover band and a very good live act," Cowsill said. "It was . . . repetition, repetition, repetition. We got stronger as musicians playing those clubs . . . because you always played three or four sets a night, from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m."

Flanders said it best. "When they all get in a room together, they can still fill a house with beautiful harmony. They deserve every bit of their success," he said.

"What we still have, and will have forever, is our talent, our music and our family," Cowsill said in the documentary.