Susan Cowsill

Susan Claire Cowsill (born May 20, 1959) is a musician, vocalist and songwriter. She rose to prominence as a member of the family band The Cowsills. After touring with Dwight Twilley for quite some time in the 1980s, she co-formed the band Continental Drifters. Since 1990, she has been with the Cowsills, along with brothers Bob and Paul.

Susan Claire Cowsill was born in Canton, Ohio, to William "Bud" and Barbara Cowsill. She is the youngest child and only daughter of seven children (her brothers being Bill, Richard, Bob, Paul, Barry and John).

Cowsill began her musical career with the Cowsills in 1967; she made her debut on We Can Fly, the Cowsills' second MGM Records album, released in early 1968. Her debut solo vocal was a song called "Ask the Children", featured in the Cowsills' third MGM album, Captain Sad And His Ship Of Fools. Her contribution to the Cowsills' backing vocals made her, upon her ninth birthday, the youngest person to be directly involved in a top ten hit record when "Indian Lake" made the Top 10 in the early summer of 1968.

In 1969, she contributed to the vocals in what would become the Cowsills' biggest hit, "Hair". She became known for her performance of the line "and spaghetti'd", which she sang with a squeakiness in her voice that she still uses when she performs the song live.

Cowsill was initially relegated to playing the tambourine, but by the time she left the group in 1971 (shortly after the release of their London Records album On My Side) she had learned to play other instruments; in an episode of the short-lived Barbara McNair Show she was seen playing bass guitar.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.