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Miami Herald
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
Susan Cowsill was 7 when she joined the Cowsills in 1966. She's on tour with them now
SAN DIEGO - Susan Cowsill stands out in more ways than one on the 2025 Happy Together Tour. She is the only woman artist in this year's lineup of the annual tour. It features Little Anthony and the current iterations of the Turtles, Jay and the Americans, Gary Puckett & The Union Gap, the Vogues and the Cowsills, the group with which Susan Cowsill rose to fame in the second half of the 1960s. At 66, she is the youngest featured musician on this year's tour. Little Anthony is 84, Gary Puckett is 82. Cowsill is the only Happy Together Tour participant who is also a key member of another veteran band - the proudly rootsy Continental Drifters - which appeals to a younger and almost entirely different audience than any other Happy Together Tour acts. And she is the only one who, as an in-demand studio musician, has sung on albums by such diverse artists as Nanci Griffith, Hootie & the Blowfish, Dwight Twilley, Giant Sand, Red Kross and such Louisiana-bred acts as the Radiators and Zachary Richard. "I was a 'singer/entertainer' up until I was 30, which is when I learned to play guitar," said Cowsill, speaking from her New Orleans home. "Then, I learned to be a musician and a songwriter, and that changed everything for me. It added to my already rich and wonderful life musical life." Cowsill's musical life began unusually early by almost any standards. She was barely seven in 1966 when she joined her family's band, the Cowsills, which served as the real-life inspiration for the hit 1960s TV show "The Partridge Family." The Cowsills featured her five older brothers - John, Paul, Barry, Bob and Bill - and their mother, Barbara. Their father, William "Bud" Cowsill, was their manager until a year after Susan became a member. The group made six albums between 1966 and 1971. Their hit singles included "The Rain, The Park and Other Things," "Indian Lake" and the chart-topping "Hair," the title track from the musical of the same name. "It obviously wasn't everyday life, but I didn't view being in the Cowsills as anything other than being in my family," Susan Cowsill recalled. "We made life on the road very entertaining for ourselves. One year we had an early concert on Halloween and my dad arranged for me to go trick-or-treating in whatever city we were in. "We had a tutor on the road with us for really only one year. We went to 'professional schools' for a year in New York and in Los Angeles. They both had (options) where we could send in our work from the road, and that's what we did. Nobody learned anything! We were filling in each other's notebooks like crazy. It wasn't normal in any way shape or form." With their wholesome image, rich vocal harmonies and well-crafted but unthreatening songs, the Cowsills were embraced as a clean-cut pop alternative to the increasingly more edgy rock music of the 1960s. Were Susan and her brothers eager to rebel and create less commercial, more challenging music than their record company would allow? "One hundred percent, but mostly my brothers," she said. "I was the youngest and was more tagging along but paying attention. My brothers were amazing musicians and songwriters. They started as an R&B band and were very serious about what they were doing. As often happens, the image of the band was taken over by the record company and they went with the 'wholesome family' thing. That's okay, but the music got hijacked." 'The band was done' The Cowsills disbanded after the release of their arresting 1971 album, the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young-inspired "On My Side." Susan was all of 12. At 14, she signed a record deal as a solo artist with Warner Bros. but released only two singles for the label. The first was "I Think of You," the first cover version by any artist of any song by Sixto "Sugarman" Rodriguez. "When the band was done, the band was done," Cowsill said. "I didn't know what I was to do. I was left to my own devices. We weren't really prepared for life when we left the Cowsills. I was the youngest and trying to figure out what kind of music would I do, or if I would even make music. Or would I become a schoolteacher?" The all-in-the-family band first reunited in 1978, then again in 1989, 1993 and 1998. "The Cowsills never break up, we just take breaks. And then we all show up," Cowsill said. Both parents have passed away; mom Barbara in 1985 and dad William in 1992. Susan's brothers, Barry and Bill, died in 2005 and 2006, respectively. The group was chronicled in the 2010 documentary "Family Band: The Cowsills Story," which premiered in the band's home state at the Rhode Island International Film Festival. As has been the case for nearly all of the nearly one-dozen Happy Together tours the Cowsills have been featured on, Susan Cowsill is the only female musician. "Susan is like so cool," said Turtles' singer Ron Dante. "She makes everybody feel like they are in the family. She is a great singer and is a spark plug who keeps things running. She relay brings energy everywhere she goes. She is an amazing person," Fellow Happy Together tour artist Gary Puckett also happily sang her praises. "Susan is absolutely wonderful," he said. "She's an earth mother who watches out for everybody on the tour. She fills the space with happiness." The Cowsills have been inducted into the California Music Hall of Fame and New York's Long Island Hall of Fame. Susan Cowsill is delighted she and her brothers Bob and Paul get to tour together annually. "What is surprising to me," she said, "is not that I'm playing with the guys - we'll do that until our last breath - but that we have a (regular) job. The Happy Together Tour is the first job security I've had in the music business. "This is the 11th year for us with the tour. I like to say that we have jobs, but we have different time clocks and pay periods than most people." Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
Deccan Herald
05-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Deccan Herald
A precious discovery
After publishing several major Kannada stories in Prajavani and other publications in Mysore state, the nineteen-year-old Rajalakshmi N. Rao published The Rain, her scintillating debut story in English, in The Illustrated Weekly of India in late 1954. On the heels of the buzz around this story by a Kannada writer, B R Nagaraj, the editor of the Sunday Magazine of Deccan Herald, dropped in at her parents' home in Kalyan, a Bombay suburb, to ask her to write for his paper. She wrote a dozen exciting short stories for DH over two and a half years. These stories appeared as lavish full-page spreads along with stylish stories in English reveal an intense literary talent at work. Acutely observant, metaphorically laden, and philosophically ambitious, they disclose a preoccupation with the existential dimensions of human relationships. In the tightly-woven story, The Rain, the rise and decline of intimacy and love in a newly married couple unfolds against three monsoons with the 'never-ending' rain being a different kind of presence each time. Besides, her virtuoso descriptions of the rain are something to savour independently inside the two quartets of Rajalakshmi's stories host the close scrutiny of self-examining protagonists, often female, and on occasion, male. The protagonists are, for the most part, educated young urban individuals in want of self-realisation or, as one of her characters puts it, desiring to 'snap out' of 'emotional anesthesia,' or whose intellectual and emotional worlds ask to be brought in sync. These literary explorations, which candidly encompass sexual matters, are not as frequently seen in Rajalakshmi's equally intense Kannada stories that show other thematic self-scrutiny of women characters in Rajalakshmi's English stories can, at times, hold a mirror to patriarchal power games, but it usually does not stop there and moves on to arrive at an enhanced self-awareness, a truer capacity for love. In the final story in the second quartet, Pastorale, a character appears to offer a considered rumination in this regard: 'Perhaps peace comes not by trying to merge oneself in another, but by merging oneself with oneself; not by looking for impossible perfections in others, but by striving for perfection in oneself; not by searching for oneself in others, but by discovering others in oneself; not by believing that others exist for being taken, but by believing that oneself exists to be given.'.A fascinating feature of Rajalakshmi's stories is their casting of inanimate objects as sentient beings. Summoning them as feeling and thinking objects realigns the self-centred human relationship with reality. Consider the following instances pulled from across her stories: 'Darkness quivered in the room like a hungry bear. She closed her eyes upon its suffering'; 'The machine huddled silent, cold, alone.'.Most of Rajalakshmi's stories move across a third-person and a first-person narration, which imbues the telling with layered, shifting intensities. She also reaches out to wildly inventive metaphors to place her philosophical reflections in front of us. My favourite among such instances appears in the story, Winter: 'This, the sky paved with cow-dung cakes, this, the moon, frightened but putting on a brave brass front, this, the incredibly agile star with its easy, opaque optimism, this is real and eternal. Thus was it when the earth tore itself free, a gem fallen from its setting, and thus will it be when you and I and we are mica smithereens shrouding the bombed remains of Beauty.'.Rajalakshmi's free-spirited stories exude a daring confidence and a quest for vision. Her bold exploratory probing of the inner self is simply unlike what is found in the writings of her contemporaries like RK Narayan, Raja Rao, Mulk Raj Anand, Kamala Markandaya, and Nayantara Sahgal. Her stories continue to be a radiant recently from the DH archives, Rajalakshmi's English stories appear along with her Kannada stories in a new anthology of her short fiction, Sangama-Pastorale, that I have compiled and edited. This book, which releases today at the Mysuru Literature Festival, nourishes literary sensibilities, enriches critical awareness.
Cosmopolitan
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Cosmopolitan
'He's like Puss in Boots': A detailed timeline of Liam and Noel Gallagher's explosive decades-long feud
It's not unusual for siblings to quarrel, but no pair of siblings has had such public arguments quite like Liam and Noel Gallagher. The two leading members of the band Oasis are finally burying the hatchet after 16 years to reunite on tour, which kicks off tonight (4 July). The duo formed the iconic band all the way back in the early 1990s and became one of Britain's best musical acts, but despite their mega success, after years of feuding on and off stage the pair finally split and Oasis was over for good in 2009. Well that was until last year, when the band announced they would be returning for a 41 date tour this summer. But before we start searching for resale tickets and looking up the set list for the new tour, what actually caused the brothers' many arguments? Here's a full timeline of their feud and all the bizarre insults they've thrown at each other over the years. In the early 1990s Liam Gallagher approached a band then known as The Rain and joined, but suggested changing the name to Oasis. Noel then joined later on after watching the band perform in Manchester. During a now famous interview with NME, the article revealed the extensive way the brothers would argue and traded intense insults at each other. A 14 minute single called 'Wibbling Rivalry' was then released soon after. In the summer of 1994 Oasis were touring America, and were performing one night in Los Angeles. During the performance Liam sniped at Noel during a song and then hit him over the head with a tambourine before making fun of the audience and storming off stage. Noel then quit the band that day before rejoining a few days later. One of the brothers' most notable feud moments happened in 1995 when they were recording their second album (What's The Story) Morning Glory? The album recording was taking place in Wales, and at one point Liam invited a bunch of people he had just met at the pub to see the band in action. Noel and Liam then argued about this, which led to Noel allegedly hitting Liam with a cricket bat that happened to be in the studio. Liam later recalled of the incident: "The whole studio got smashed to pieces, everything just got blitzed to bits. It was probably me not giving a f**k and him trying to write f**king 'Bohemian Rhapsody,' and me going, 'Bollocks, let's have it.'' The cricket bat was later auctioned off. Following the biggest gig of their careers so far playing to 250,000 fans at Knebworth Park, the band were set record an episode of MTV Unplugged. Liam dropped out citing laryngitis as the cause. However, Liam then showed up at Royal Festival Hall where the recording was taking place and went on the balcony where he was seen smoking, drinking and heckling Noel. Liam then tried to get onstage at which point Noel told him to "piss off". The band were then due to go on tour in America at which point Liam pulled out again but then turned up three days in. The tour was then cancelled two weeks later. The band were due to play a show in Barcelona, however had to cancel the gig due to the drummer Alan White injuring his arm. The band then went and drank, and at some point in the evening it was alleged Liam had questioned the paternity of Noel's daughter Anaïs, who he shares with ex-wife Meg Matthews. The moment reportedly led to an altercation between the brothers and Noel quitting the rest of the band's tour. Despite their many fall outs the band carried on, but was not without its problems. During a show in 2005, Liam walked off the stage mid-way through 'Champagne Supernova'. Though still together in the band at this point, the pair were well used to saying negative things about each other in interview.s In early 2009 Noel was reported to have told Q Magazine that his brother Liam is "the angriest man you'll ever meet. He's like a man with a fork in a world of soup". 10 years later, Liam responded to the insult by posting a video of himself on Twitter eating soup with a fork and thanking for buying tickets to his shows. While performing in Europe, it was one fateful performance in Paris that caused the band to finally breakup for good. Noel alleged the pair had physically fought before starting their world tour and they were now travelling separately to the shows. In 2015, he told Esquire of the state the pair were in: "The last six months were f***ing awful, it was excruciating. "Me and Liam had a massive, massive, massive fistfight three weeks before the world tour started, and fights like that in the past would always be easy to rectify but for some reason I wasn't going to let it go this time. I was just like, 'F**k this ****.' And there was an atmosphere all the way around the world." Noel also went onto say he was frustrated with Liam's approach to the band, claiming Liam was using the band's profile to sell parkas. "Then he [Liam] starts his own clothing label and starts dedicating songs to it on stage and I'm like, 'Really, is this what it's come to?' He's modelling parkas on stage which you could buy on his website. And it's just like, 'This is not for me,'" he explained. Ahead of the show in Paris, it was alleged Liam had started welding a guitar at Noel like an axe. In 2015, Noel said of the alleged incident: "[Liam] goes out the dressing room, for whatever reason, he went to his own dressing room, and he came back with a guitar, and he started wielding it like an axe, and I'm not f**king kidding." Following this Noel decided to quit the band for good. He revealed his decision on Oasis' website, explaining: "It's with some sadness and great relief to tell you that I quit Oasis tonight. People will write and say what they like, but I simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer." Shortly after the band's breakup, Oasis were awarded a BRIT award for the best album of the last 30 years for (What's the Story) Morning Glory? Liam was the only one there to collect the award and went onto thank all the members of the band apart from Noel. Following the breakdown of Oasis, both brothers formed new groups. Liam's is Beady Eye, while Noel's is High Flying Birds, which his brother then decided to nickname 'High Flying Turds'. He then went onto say his brother looked like he belonged in the boyband Westlife. Speaking to Q magazine he said: "He blew it. He could have said, I was a dick, he was a dick, that's life, it's 2011, here's my f**king record. "Listen, our Kid's a mouthy f**k too. He said we had a year to come up with a band name and came up with Beady Eye. "He had three and came up with the High Flying Turds. I don't know who dressed him but he looks like something out of Westlife." Later on that year Liam was asked if he'd ever reunite the band with his brother, to which he replied: "I'd rather eat my own s**t than be in a band with him again. He's a miserable little f**k … If the fans want it, though, I'd do it.' Over the years it appears the brothers' interactions with each other are brief, however, Liam does take to trolling Noel on social media, frequently posting pictures of his sibling and captioning them "potato". Following the horrific attack at the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, Liam performed on stage at the One Love Manchester concert to honour the victims. He then tweeted about Noel's lack of appearance, saying: "Noel's out of the f**king country weren't we all love get on a f**king plane and play your tunes for the kids you sad f**k." Noel then responded in an interview with The Sunday Times, claiming he wasn't asked to perform. "Young Mancunians, young music fans, were slaughtered, and he, twice, takes it somewhere to be about him. He needs to see somebody," he said in response. In July 2019, Noel's wife Sara MacDonald was asked if she would watch Liam's performance at Glastonbury, to which she declined and described Liam as a: "fat t**t doing his tribute act." Following this Noel then claimed Liam had sent a 'threatening' message to Noel's daughter Anaïs. Noel shared a screenshot of the alleged message which said: "Tell your step mam to be very careful." Noel went onto write on his own social media about the screenshot: "So you're sending threatening messages via my teenage daughter now are you? You always were good at intimidating women though eh." Liam went onto apologise publicly saying: "My sincere apologies to my beautiful mum Peggy and my lovely niece Anaïs for getting caught up in all of this childish behaviour I love you both dearly." While appearing on The Jonathan Ross Show, Noel denies claims he said no to a £100m reunion. Speaking on the show Noel said: "There isn't £100m in the music business, right, between all of us … If anybody wants to offer me £100m now, I'll say it now, I'll do it. I'll do it for £100m.' Liam then responded on Twitter saying he would do it for free. During yet another interview when he was asked about the reunion between himself and his brother and the band, Noel said it wouldn't happen and compared Liam to Puss in Boots from Shrek. He told Rolling Stone Music Now podcast: "Well, I know for a fact he doesn't want it either, but he likes to paint this picture of, you know, this little f**king guy who's sitting with his suitcase packed by the door, you know, like the little f**king cat from fucking Shrek, you know, the little fucking Spanish cat with these big f**king teary eyes. 'I'm [gonna] go and do it now for you fans. I love you.' It's like, well, fucking call me then. And he hasn't called me. And until he does, it's f**king going nowhere.' After 15 years since they last performed together on stage as Oasis, Liam and Noel announce the band is getting back together for a worldwide tour in 2025. Heading to the tour? Check out the set list here.
Daily Mirror
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Oasis masterclass set to take place ahead of band's massive reunion tour
New Oasis fans - or those in need of a refresher - are being offered a college masterclass to learn all about the band ahead of their sold-out reunion tour later this year Glasgow Clyde College in Scotland is set to bring Britpop back into the classroom with an Oasis masterclass, ahead of the band's highly anticipated reunion tour this summer. The college aims to introduce the Manchester band to a new generation of concert-goers through this unique class. The Oasis reunion tour has already generated massive interest, with over 1.4 million tickets sold for the 17 UK dates. This innovative course follows on from last year when the college offered a Taylor Swift class to help parents understand the popstar's music before accompanying their children to her Eras Tour shows. The Oasis masterclass at Glasgow Clyde College will guide fans through the band's early days as The Rain, their discovery at Glasgow's King Tuts venue, their most popular albums and their notorious falling out. READ MORE: Win tickets to see Oasis at Wembley in our fab competition The course will delve into the attitude, aesthetic and anthems that made Oasis a cultural phenomenon, highlighting why they were one of the biggest bands globally and showcasing key moments to anticipate in one of the most eagerly awaited series of concerts in recent memory. Designed specifically for younger fans attending the tour, this one-off course will take place at Glasgow Clyde College's Langside Campus on June 26 from 6pm in the Innovation Centre. The presentation and audio commentary will also be available online for those unable to attend in person. Two members of the college's team, who claim to have devoted their lives to the band, will teach the course. Christopher Kennedy, a 50 year old curriculum manager for the school of business and finance, is a die-hard Oasis fan who has been following the band since their inception and has attended over 40 live performances, including iconic shows at Glastonbury and T in the Park's King Tut's Tent in 1994, as well as Wembley in 2000. Help us improve our content by completing the survey below. We'd love to hear from you! Amy Butler, a 38 year old accounting lecturer and e-learning development officer, claims she has "lived and breathed" Oasis since 1995. With more than 20 concerts to her name, Oasis-themed tattoos adorning her skin, and a son named Noel, she's on a mission to prove that Oasis represents not just music, but "a movement". Robert Anderson, assistant principal at Glasgow Clyde College, commented: "With the Oasis reunion now just weeks away, we wanted to create something that would help fans, especially younger ones attending with their parents, understand why this band still means so much to so many. Are you going to see Oasis? Let us know the songs you hope to hear in the comments below! "This masterclass is about more than just the music; it's about the attitude, the era, the energy, and the cultural moment that Oasis defined. For anyone heading to the gigs, it's a chance to feel fully immersed, to know the backstory, and to connect with what made them the biggest band in the world," Anderson added. He continued: "Last year's Taylor Swift masterclass helped parents understand the world their kids were stepping into. This flips that idea. Now, it's the younger generation getting a crash course in Oasis before experiencing the reunion with their mums and dads. At Glasgow Clyde College, we're all about helping people prepare, learn, and create unforgettable memories together, and this felt like the perfect moment to do just that."
Wales Online
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Wales Online
College unveils Oasis masterclass for fans ahead of reunion tour
College unveils Oasis masterclass for fans ahead of reunion tour Glasgow Clyde College said its class would help introduce the Manchester outfit to a new generation of gig-goers. (Image: PA ) A college in Scotland will bring Britpop back to the classroom as it launches an Oasis masterclass ahead of the band's reunion tour this summer. Glasgow Clyde College said its class would help introduce the Manchester outfit to a new generation of gig-goers. More than 1.4 million tickets have been sold across 17 UK dates for the massively-hyped reunion tour. The course comes a year after the college offered a Taylor Swift class to help parents accompanying their kids to the popstar's Eras Tour shows. Glasgow Clyde College said its Oasis masterclass would take fans throughout the early days of The Rain, to the chance of discovery at the city's King Tuts venue, through to their most popular albums and infamous falling out. The attitude, aesthetic and anthems which made Oasis a cultural phenomenon will be covered, showing why they were one of the biggest bands in the world and showcasing key moments to look forward to in one of the most anticipated run of gigs in recent memory. Article continues below The one-off course, designed for younger fans attending the tour, will take place at Glasgow Clyde College's Langside Campus on June 26 from 6pm in the Innovation Centre. The presentation and audio commentary will also be available to watch online. It will be taught by two members of the college's team who say they have devoted their lives to the band. Christopher Kennedy, a 50-year-old curriculum manager for the school of business and finance, has followed Oasis since their earliest days and has seen them live over 40 times, from Glastonbury and T in the Park's King Tut's Tent in 1994 to Wembley in 2000. Amy Butler, a 38-year-old accounting lecturer and e-learning development officer, 38, says she has "lived and breathed" the band since 1995. With over 20 gigs under her belt, Oasis tattoos on her body, and a son named Noel, she's determined to show that Oasis is more than a band, but "a movement". Robert Anderson, assistant principal at Glasgow Clyde College, said: "With the Oasis reunion now just weeks away, we wanted to create something that would help fans, especially younger ones attending with their parents, understand why this band still means so much to so many. "This masterclass is about more than just the music; it's about the attitude, the era, the energy, and the cultural moment that Oasis defined. "For anyone heading to the gigs, it's a chance to feel fully immersed, to know the backstory, and to connect with what made them the biggest band in the world. "Last year's Taylor Swift masterclass helped parents understand the world their kids were stepping into. "This flips that idea. Now, it's the younger generation getting a crash course in Oasis before experiencing the reunion with their mums and dads. "At Glasgow Clyde College, we're all about helping people prepare, learn, and create unforgettable memories together, and this felt like the perfect moment to do just that." Article continues below To sign up for free tickets, fans should visit:
