SUSAN COWSILL has had a long and incredible career, and despite the tough childhood outlined in the documentary about her family's band THE COWSILLS, she seems to have turned out to be a wonderful person—and is definitely an amazing singer.
She makes no secret of her love of Linda Ronstadt and possibly the best compliment I can pay her is that she’s every bit as good a singer/harmonizer. Aside from covering Warren Zevon’s Mohammed's Radio, there aren’t many similarities between them, other than singing ability—and an unerring ability to choose material that’s perfect for them.
Mohammed's Radio was on a digital single that also contains the lead off track It Might As Well Rain Until September—a GOFFIN/KING song that was written for Bobby Vee, & instead released as a Carole King single because Don Kirshner loved her demo of it. King is an intensely personal & emotional singer, & COWSILL easily matches the original on both counts.
SUSAN’s versions are as dear to me as the originals of songs a vocalist has to be fearless (or foolish) to cover like Sandy Denny’s Who Knows Where The Time Goes, Brian Wilson’s Don’t Worry Baby, & John Lennon’s Julia. Julia is a live recording with another artist I’ve given the IN THE MIX treatment; The Bangles’ VICKI PETERSON.
PETERSON is Susan’s partner in PSYCHO SISTERS—and they both seem to love to collaborate. They were both also in CONTINENTAL DRIFTERS, who are represented here by two live-in-studio tracks from an appearance on NYC’s WFUV, and two album cuts. VICKI PETERSON is married to Susan’s brother, JOHN COWSILL and the couple recorded an album of songs by his brothers Bill & Barry. SUSAN gets to the heart of Barry’s River Of Love—a song that they left alone--& one Susan started performing with her own band during the four months after Katrina that Barry was missing.
Naturally there are plenty of tracks with THE COWSILLS. Readers who haven’t dug into their catalogue (which is packed with power pop) would be forgiven for mistaking Is It Any Wonder for The Plimsouls. The hit versions of Indian Lake, & Hair, are included, as well as an incredible live version of The Rain, The Park & Other Things (on Huckabee's Jukebox). Recorded 52 years after she was added to the line-up, it proves that Susan and her brothers are the vocal counterparts of Dick Clark.
Jonder will be happy to see her duet on REDD KROSS’ Love Is Not Love—which could be a lost track by THE COWSILLS—and has become one of my favorite songs on this edition—but it has a LOT of competition.
Because of the high quality of her work, the songs on this collection could be randomly shuffled & it would still flow, but I spent much more time than usual on the track order.
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ReplyDeleteAs you can see, I’m a big SUSAN COWSILL fan—especially her work with PSYCHO SISTERS. But their lone album didn’t connect with me the first time I heard it.
Is there a record that you didn’t care for at first, that later became a favorite?
A grower, not a show-er? A "creeper" release?
Here’s the link:
IN THE MIX Susan Cowsill Edition Vol. 1
https://pixeldrain.com/u/zzxK6Kfb