Our Daily Dead (and many others) have the story:
Billy Cowsill, 58; Lead Singer for 1960s Teen Pop Band the Cowsills
I admit it — I was in junior high when “The Rain, the Park, and Other Things” came out. I liked it. And I associated with a girl who seemed always to wear short floral-printed dresses. I won’t go any further down that particular memory alley.
But back to Billy Cowsill. The money quote from the nicely done Los Angeles Times obit:
“At the time of his death, Billy Cowsill’s Co-Dependents album ‘Live at the Cafe Mecca Vol. 2′ was the top-selling independent album in the Canadian province of Alberta.”
That says it all. On the other hand, Billy was still singing. His brother Barry was living in New Orleans and went missing after Hurricane Katrina hit last August. His body was found four months later — “on a wharf,” the L.A. Times says — just after Christmas (there’s a memorial page on the Cowsills site).