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William "Billy" Cowsill, lead singer of Sixties singing family the Cowsills, died on Friday at his home in Calgary at the age of fifty-eight. He had been in poor health, suffering from emphysema, Cushing's syndrome and osteoporosis. The Cowsills, the real-life family that inspired the hit TV series The Partridge Family, scored two Number Two hits, "The Rain, the Park and Other Things" and the title track to the hit rock musical Hair. The Newport, Rhode Island, band, which included brothers Billy (guitar), Barry (bass), Bob (guitar and organ) and John (drums), would later also feature brother Paul (keyboards) and...

The lead singer of the 1960s family band The Cowsills has died _ and his family learned it just after a memorial service for his brother. According to family members, William Cowsill died Friday in Canada. He had been suffering from emphysema, osteoporosis and other ailments. He was 58 years old. Cowsill was the frontman for the band bearing his family's name. The Newport group was discovered by an N-B-C producer in 1965. Soon after, they recorded three number-one hits including "Hair," "The Rain, The Park and Other Things" and "Indian Lake." News of his death came just after a...

The Cowsills got the news they had been dreading over the holidays. Barry Cowsill — missing since Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans — is dead. His body, positively identified through a DNA match, is in a morgue in Baton Rouge, where it has been since the storm. “It’s a sad ending to the search,” said family friend A.J. Wachtel. “FEMA won’t say how he died or where but he apparently had been underwater.” Cowsill, 51, who with the rest of his singing family belted out their vintage hit “Hair” at Fenway Park during the epic Red Sox-Yankees 2004 ALCS showdown,...

NEW ORLEANS - Barry Cowsill, a member of the popular 1960s singing family The Cowsills, was found dead on a wharf nearly four months after he disappeared when Hurricane Katrina flooded the city. He was 51. Cowsill's body, recovered Dec. 28 from the Chartres Street Wharf, was identified with dental records Tuesday, said Dr. Louis Cataldie, head of the state hurricane morgue in Carville. The coroner had not determined the cause of death but believed it was related to the devastating storm, which struck the city Aug. 29. Cowsill, who lived on and off in New Orleans, had not been...