Susan Cowsill

Susan Cowsill began her career in the music industry at the tender age of seven years old, when she joined her brothers Bill, Bob, Barry, Paul, and John and her mother Barbara in the pop group the Cowsills in 1966. While best remembered as the real-life group that inspired the television series The Partridge Family, the Cowsills scored a handful of fine hit singles (including "Hair," "Indian Lake," and "The Rain, the Park and Other Things") and released six albums before the group disbanded in 1971, when Susan was 12. While the Cowsills did periodic reunion shows (and cut a well-received new album in 1998, Global), Susan took a break from the music business for most of the 1970s, though she cut a pair of little-heard singles for Warner Brothers in 1977. It was in the early '80s that Susan began making a serious name for herself again in music, initially as a backing vocalist. She became a full-time member of Dwight Twilley's band and sang on several of his albums in the 1980s, including 1984's Jungle, which spawned the hit single "Girls." In the 1990s, Susan's career moved into higher gear; she was in demand as a backing vocalist, lending her talents to albums by Hootie & the Blowfish, Giant Sand, the Smithereens, Carlene Carter, and Jules Shear, and she began to step back into the spotlight when she joined the alt-country supergroup the Continental Drifters, which also featured former Bangles guitarist Vicki Peterson and Peter Holsapple of the dB's. Susan and Peter also formed a personal partnership when they wed in 1992, while Vicki and Susan devoted some of their spare time to a side project, the Psycho Sisters, who played club dates and released a single. The Continental Drifters won enthusiastic reviews and a potent cult following in the United States, and even greater commercial success in Europe, releasing three albums and an EP between 1994 and 2001. However, Susan Cowsill and Peter Holsapple divorced in 2001, and Susan opted to leave the group later that year. Susan soon formed a solo band with Chris Knotts on guitar, Rob Savoy on bass, and Russ Broussard on drums; Broussard, who had played with the Continental Drifters, married Susan in 2003, and as a side project they put together a zydeco band, the Bonoffs, which gigged periodically around their adopted hometown of New Orleans. In 2005, only 38 years after appearing on record for the first time, Susan Cowsill finally released her first solo album, the critically acclaimed Just Believe It, which featured guest appearances from Vicki Peterson, Lucinda Williams, and Adam Duritz. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi