William Joseph Cowsill Jr. (January 9, 1948 – February 18, 2006) was an American singer, musician, songwriter, and record producer.
At a young age, Bill began singing with his younger brother Bob (born August 26, 1949), playing guitars provided for them by their father, who at the time was serving in the U.S.
Although the single failed to chart, an appearance on the NBC Today Show to promote it was seen by Shelby Singleton, who offered them a contract with Mercury Records.
[7] From this album, "Indian Lake" became another Top 10 hit, but Cowsill felt that it was an inferior song, and he fired the producer, Wes Farrell.
[8] The Cowsills were noted for their ability to sing multiple-part harmonies with remarkable accuracy and were one of the most popular musical acts in America.
This led to Columbia Pictures division Screen Gems considering a sitcom based on their story and starring most of the members of the band; the deal was abandoned when the producers of the show wanted to replace Barbara in the cast.
It was commonly thought that Cowsill's involvement with the family band came to an abrupt end in 1969 when Bud caught him smoking marijuana.
In fact, Cowsill's dismissal occurred after he and his father got into a drunken brawl in the lounge of the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas, when Bud insulted Bill's friends, particularly guitarist Waddy Wachtel.
[10] From Las Vegas, he (and Wachtel) went directly to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he began playing in bars, "for ten bucks a night and all the whiskey you could drink."
In fact, Cowsill was one of several people who pitched in to purchase the old railway bar, McNeil Depot, in 1978, and then sold it to its current owner a few months later.
Cowsill played in the bars and hotels of Yellowknife for a short time; the city has just 20,000 people and a limited number of entertainment venues.
[16] On that occasion, the band was in Provost, Alberta, opening for Bryan Fustukian, the well-known DJ who had become a successful country music artist.
Cowsill accepted the invitation to join Fustukian's band and stayed on for about a year, as guitarist and co-lead singer.
Cowsill rented an apartment in the former Hippie enclave of Kitsilano, and began sitting in with bands playing at The Yale's famous Sunday jam sessions.
Stephens had just become part of the new country rock band Blue Northern; Cowsill began sitting in and then joined on vocals, guitar and percussion.
[20] He also co-produced the 1983 album Restless Heart by the Winnipeg country singer Patti Mayo, which Blue Northern performed on.
Blue Northern's members splintered off; their last performance was as part of a Christmas concert at Vancouver's Commodore Ballroom on December 23, 1982.
[22] The band played a steady stream of gigs in Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton,[23] becoming popular in western Canada by performing what Cowsill described as his "Dead Guys Set"; country and pop songs by artists no longer living.
He appeared more than once on Ian Tyson's TV show Sun Country, he played every Sunday night at the Wrangler Room, and the band was a regular fixture at the Calgary clubs Slack Alice and McGees, and at Edmonton's Sidetrack Cafe.
But in January 1987, he returned to Vancouver, accepting scheduled regular bookings at the Fairview Pub and the Soft Rock Cafe.
These were, as Cowsill acknowledged, precipitated by his addictions to drugs and alcohol,[28] which impaired his ability to contribute to songwriting meetings, band rehearsals and, ultimately, performances.
[32] The actual end of the band occurred during a layover in Ottawa, Ontario, when Cowsill crashed their van into a laundromat.
[38] Once he was sober, Cowsill started to play engagements with these same musicians—bassist Tim Leacock, guitarist and singer Steve Pineo, and drummer Ross Watson.
[39] Cowsill also enrolled, as a full-time student,[40] at Mount Royal College in Calgary, where he worked towards a degree in psychology, with the objective of becoming a counselor for troubled youth.
In 2000, he produced and arranged the vocals for Sun Sittin', the debut album of Calgary hard rock band Optimal Impact--Cowsill coined the term 'Surf Metal' when asked to describe their music.
[46] In 2002, Cowsill co-produced the EP Dyin' to Go for Calgary country and blues singer, Ralph Boyd Johnson.
[58] Six months before his death, he accepted an invitation to perform two songs onstage with Calgary honky-tonk singer-songwriter Tom Phillips.
[62] Cowsill also co-wrote, with Ralph Boyd Johnson and Suzanne Leacock,[63] the title song to the album, on which he plays guitar.
[65][66] Family members learned of his death while holding a memorial service the next day, in Newport, Rhode Island, for his brother Barry, who was a victim of Hurricane Katrina (his body had not been found and identified until January 2006).