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It says a great deal about how pop records were made in the 1960s that the Cowsills' Captain Sad and His Ship of Fools was the third album the Rhode Island family band would cut within the space of just 12 months, and while most current bands would balk at the workload of cutting one album a year along with touring, 1968's Captain Sad suggests the Cowsills were handling their busy schedule very well indeed. Captain Sad doesn't feature as many hits as the Cowsills' first two long-players (though "Indian Lake" would chart high for the group), but the music is uniformly splendid, and for a group that featured members who were nine and 11, the material is mature, tuneful, and beautifully executed, with excellent harmonies from the siblings and imaginative production from Billy Cowsill and Bob Cowsill. The Cowsills only wrote four songs for Captain Sad, but they happen to be four of the album's standout tracks -- "Newspaper Blanket" is a prescient and poignant tale of a homeless man asleep on a snowy bench, "Make the Music Flow" is a great slice of sunshine pop, "Meet Me at the Wishing Well" is superior folk-rock, and the title tune is a playful exercise in psychedelic-influenced pop with an arrangement that edges into baroque pop. Elsewhere, "Who Can Teach a Songbird How to Sing" (written in part by Graham Nash) is a great showcase for the group's harmonies, "The Fantasy World of Harry Faversham" is a silly but effective story of one man's Walter Mitty-style fantasies, "The Bridge" gives Barbara Cowsill a rare and lovely lead vocal, and if "Indian Lake" seems a bit lightweight in this context, it still sounds like the perfect hit single it was. Captain Sad and His Ship of Fools is a marvelous artifact from the golden age of pop record-making, and offers more evidence (as if it were needed) that the Cowsills were more than another bubblegum act of the era -- they were one of the more gifted and ambitious groups to hit the charts in their day.
© Mark Deming /TiVo
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The Cowsills, MainArtist - Herb Bernstein, Recording Arranger, AssociatedPerformer - Bob Cowsill, Producer, ComposerLyricist - Bill Cowsill, Producer, ComposerLyricist
℗ 1968 UMG Recordings, Inc.
Tony Powers, ComposerLyricist - The Cowsills, MainArtist - Herb Bernstein, Recording Arranger, AssociatedPerformer - Bob Cowsill, Producer, ComposerLyricist - Bill Cowsill, Producer, ComposerLyricist
℗ 1968 Mercury Records, a Division of UMG Recordings, Inc.
Tony Romeo, Recording Arranger, AssociatedPerformer, ComposerLyricist - Wesley Farrell, Producer - The Cowsills, MainArtist
℗ 1968 UMG Recordings, Inc.
The Cowsills, MainArtist - Herb Bernstein, Recording Arranger, AssociatedPerformer - Bob Cowsill, Producer - Carey Budnick, ComposerLyricist - Edward Goldfluss, ComposerLyricist - John Wonderling, ComposerLyricist - Bill Cowsill, Producer
℗ 1968 Mercury Records, a Division of UMG Recordings, Inc.
CLAUS OGERMAN, ComposerLyricist - The Cowsills, MainArtist - Herb Bernstein, Recording Arranger, AssociatedPerformer - Bob Cowsill, Producer - Bill Cowsill, Producer
℗ 1968 Mercury Records, a Division of UMG Recordings, Inc.
Tony Romeo, Recording Arranger, AssociatedPerformer - The Cowsills, MainArtist - Wes Farell, Producer - John Gluck Jr., ComposerLyricist
℗ 1968 Mercury Records, a Division of UMG Recordings, Inc.
Wes Farrell, Producer - Tony Romeo, Recording Arranger, AssociatedPerformer, ComposerLyricist - The Cowsills, MainArtist
℗ 1968 UMG Recordings, Inc.
The Cowsills, MainArtist - Herb Bernstein, Recording Arranger, AssociatedPerformer - Bob Cowsill, Producer, ComposerLyricist - Bill Cowsill, Producer, ComposerLyricist
℗ 1968 UMG Recordings, Inc.
The Cowsills, MainArtist - Herb Bernstein, Recording Arranger, AssociatedPerformer - Bob Cowsill, Producer, ComposerLyricist - Bill Cowsill, Producer, ComposerLyricist
℗ 1968 UMG Recordings, Inc.
David Hess, ComposerLyricist - The Cowsills, MainArtist - Herb Bernstein, Recording Arranger, AssociatedPerformer - Vic Millrose, ComposerLyricist - Bob Cowsill, Producer - Bill Cowsill, Producer
℗ 1968 Mercury Records, a Division of UMG Recordings, Inc.
The Cowsills, MainArtist - Billy Barberis, ComposerLyricist - Herb Bernstein, Recording Arranger, AssociatedPerformer - Bobby Ronga, ComposerLyricist - Bob Cowsill, Producer - Bill Cowsill, Producer
℗ 1968 Mercury Records, a Division of UMG Recordings, Inc.
DAVID GATES, ComposerLyricist - The Cowsills, MainArtist - Herb Bernstein, Recording Arranger, AssociatedPerformer - Bob Cowsill, Producer - Bill Cowsill, Producer
℗ 1968 Mercury Records, a Division of UMG Recordings, Inc.
Album review
It says a great deal about how pop records were made in the 1960s that the Cowsills' Captain Sad and His Ship of Fools was the third album the Rhode Island family band would cut within the space of just 12 months, and while most current bands would balk at the workload of cutting one album a year along with touring, 1968's Captain Sad suggests the Cowsills were handling their busy schedule very well indeed. Captain Sad doesn't feature as many hits as the Cowsills' first two long-players (though "Indian Lake" would chart high for the group), but the music is uniformly splendid, and for a group that featured members who were nine and 11, the material is mature, tuneful, and beautifully executed, with excellent harmonies from the siblings and imaginative production from Billy Cowsill and Bob Cowsill. The Cowsills only wrote four songs for Captain Sad, but they happen to be four of the album's standout tracks -- "Newspaper Blanket" is a prescient and poignant tale of a homeless man asleep on a snowy bench, "Make the Music Flow" is a great slice of sunshine pop, "Meet Me at the Wishing Well" is superior folk-rock, and the title tune is a playful exercise in psychedelic-influenced pop with an arrangement that edges into baroque pop. Elsewhere, "Who Can Teach a Songbird How to Sing" (written in part by Graham Nash) is a great showcase for the group's harmonies, "The Fantasy World of Harry Faversham" is a silly but effective story of one man's Walter Mitty-style fantasies, "The Bridge" gives Barbara Cowsill a rare and lovely lead vocal, and if "Indian Lake" seems a bit lightweight in this context, it still sounds like the perfect hit single it was. Captain Sad and His Ship of Fools is a marvelous artifact from the golden age of pop record-making, and offers more evidence (as if it were needed) that the Cowsills were more than another bubblegum act of the era -- they were one of the more gifted and ambitious groups to hit the charts in their day.
© Mark Deming /TiVo
About the album
- 1 disc(s) - 12 track(s)
- Total length: 00:33:24
- Main artists: The Cowsills
- Composer: Various Composers
- Label: Mercury Records
- Genre: Pop/Rock Pop
© 1968 Mercury Records, a Division of UMG Recordings, Inc. ℗ 1968 Mercury Records, a Division of UMG Recordings, Inc.
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