This is Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast More What You Here
weekday afternoons on the Drive. You know the cow Seals by their many hit
records like Hair, The Flower Girl, Indian Lake, The Rain, The
Park, and other things. Bob cow Sill is a member of the famous
family singing sensation the cow Sials, and is featured on Thank You Mister Rogers
Music and Memories, a deluxe album that is being reissued to commemorate what would
have been Fred Rogers ninety fifth birthday. Several artists got together to record many
of the songs featured on the Mister Rogers Neighborhood TV show, and the cow
Seals were one of them. Bob, welcome. So let me guess it
all started with you and your brothers and sisters sitting around the television watching an
episode of the Partridge Family, and you said, I think I can do
that too. I'm kidding, I know. It's a great honor that parters
face only story is fantastic to us. We love it, okay, I
mean they liked our story if we proved it was a successful story. You
know the moms in the band that on the bus, they're touring. They
just didn't want us. They wanted our story and that was fine. We
had a shot at it, but we weren't actors. But they turned us
down to be the children and went and had to hit TV show that to
this day. Now. Back then our star was kind of fading in the
seventies, when the Bartridges came along, kept our name in the print forever.
And now we returned the favor to Shirley in the gang and keep their
name alive with an association with us. So it's pretty cool. Well,
you all, I think we're far better at musicians than than than they would
have than they were. I think what Shirley and maybe her son were the
only ones who actually did the singing. Honestly, we were prayed that they
would put together a band. You're right, I mean, David and Shirley
talents to the other kids. You know, central casting cool, that's okay,
But we were hoping they would put a band together and together the partner's
family and the Cowsils would go out on tour. You know, they never
did, but we always thought it was a great business model if they could
Bob cowcils with us with the cow Sils, he is featured on the Thank
You Mister Rogers Music and Memories album. It's the music that you heard on
the TV show and several artists got together to do this. The cow Sils
sing the title track, Won't You Be My Neighbor? When they reached out
to you to do this project, what were your first thoughts? Our first
thoughts was who knew that mister Rogers was a songwriter? Our second thought was,
you mean he wrote Won't You Be My Neighbor? We were so impressed
with that. I can't tell you. Look, we all grew up watching
his TV show. The music on the TV show is, of course,
just a supportive thing for what you're watching and going through with mister Rogers on
his show. So the music is subtle, it's not primary. Now they
call us to go record this wonderful song, and when you go into the
studio and you break it down and you record a song like well You'd be
My neighbor, you really do understand the brilliance of it and what a great
songwriter Fred Rogers action was. I think a lot of people thought he had
some sort of child psychology degree or therapy degree. They didn't realize his degree
was in music. He played I think piano and organ. Yeah, he
was an accomplished musician. This is something I believe that Fred himself used in
his own life in a supportive way. It wasn't I don't think it was
his primary as primary was the children in the show and his image as Fred
Rogers image the music. I don't know. It's amazing. He could have
bragged about it. He could have said hey, that's me and done this
a lot sooner, but it never happened that way. So we're thrilled that
now everyone can understand, like this was a bigger talent than all of you
thought. Bob Castle of the cow Sills featured on the album Thank You Mister
Rogers, along with Mickey Dolan's Perfect Beautiful Day, and Essa william sings Many
Things I Say, I Love, Jim Brickman right sings this is My Home,
and even John Sacava Podemo said amigos, which means won't you be my
neighbor? Um? But managed yeah cool version, Yeah, yeah, I
remember an interview with Graded go ahead. We interacted with some of those people
by getting to their sessions, like Mickey Dolans and stuff, But a lot
of times we're in there. We didn't get to meet Tom, for instance,
or some of the other people. Boy, what a great honor to
be with them on this record. It was almost like, oh, I
don't know a traveling road show from the seventies. It would be cool,
wouldn't it. When we got won't you be my neighbor? We couldn't believe
that we got that. We thought a bigger name would be Mickey Dolans or
Tom or or somebody else. We could not believe of all the songs they
chose, they gave us that one. So we thought we had a head
start on everybody else because we got the best song. But then you hear
these other tunes, you go, well, now wait a minute, and
that's when you find out this guy was pretty good. Bob Cowsill a member
of the famous singing family the cow Sials, and featured on Thank You Mister
Rogers, a compilation of all of the music you used to hear on the
TV show. And if anyone has ever asked, whatever happened to the cow
Sials, I think the answer is nothing. You guys are still going strong
and you never stopped. We never stopped. We have We're on our seventh
Happy Together tour this summer, sixty cities with other acts from the genre.
You know, Little Anthony's coming this summer with as we're excited about meeting Little
Anthony and Gary Puckett and the Turtles and the Bogus and the Classic Sport.
It's a fun tour. It's of course, we're all grateful artists because six
of us can now continue to do what we all did in the old day
by ourselves. And this is a great business model. Just wonderful night of
hit records. Well, that's another thing that I don't know. That the
cow Sials fell into that dark period that many many bands of that era fell
into. Well, it was pretty rough and tumble. But the rough and
tumbleness was within our own family. Our trouble was with our dad. Our
trouble was growing up in a military family. But the military is not where
you apply to raise six boys and a girl. It didn't work. So
our challenges were from within. And despite those challenges from within, we overcame
them at least four times, you know, to continue getting recordings and doing
our job. We were very young, but we were in charge of the
music bill and I you know, seventeen and eighteen. We were running the
show back then, and we loved the studio. It's where our dad couldn't
interfere. No one would interfere. They left us alan in the studio.
That's where our peace and calm took place, and we loved it. Well.
The music probably helped too, because some of the tunes that you were
you were performing, we were kind of getting into that folk era anyway.
Well, we wanted to produce and that it was our natural sound. But
we were basically happy people and we want we sound happy, and we project
how life should be. We think to our harmonies and hopefully when people hear
is it's an uplifting thing. That's all we want a lot like mister Rogers
attitude. And the album is Thank You Mister Rogers Music in Memories, a
compilation of the songs you heard on Mister Rogers done by some of your favorite
artists like The Cowsills and Bob Cowsill. Thanks for joining us today, thank
you for having me pick up that album lead Thanks for listening to Later with
Lee Matthews the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live
weekday afternoons from five to seven and Ihearts Media Presentation