PATRICK COWLEY
The San Francisco Sound
Official Biography
by Daniel Eduardo Heinzmann - © 2001

THE  DECEASE                                         

 Patrick Cowley left Sylvester's band because he already was sick, also because he could not stand touring, but also  he wanted to do his own productions with his own singers . However, Sylvester himself had let him go, after the UK tour of Mighty Real, Disco Heat, with the idea that synths were over, and R&B would be his new direction, and Patrick was no longer necesary.

However, he joined Sylvester again a short time later, because the gay star broke off his contract with Fantasy Records; they were not pleased with gay image anymore since Harvey Fuqua (his producer) wanted a straight photo on the cover for his new record, Fuqua did not even want Cowley's presence in the production or in Fantasy's studios. However,nothing was better for Sylvester than going to work with his old friends ,Patrick Cowley and Marty Blecman, at Megatone Records.

                        "One night, Marty Blecman was having a party and Patrick had a long talk with me who, at that time, was working at University of California Medical Center in San Francisco. Patrick kept looking very sick and I, very worried about him, convinced him to go to UC Med Center and see a specialist, which he did.  At that time AIDS, the decease, was unknown. He first got sick in South America , and everybody thought it was the food he had eaten." (DANNY WILLIAMS )

 Patrick had a "mysterious undiagnosable illness". Physicians could  not  diagnose any certain desease. They thought he had parasites caused by  food or a psychosomatic illness. They also treated him and prescribed  medicine  for pneumonia.

  Marty Blecman finally had admitted Patrick into the UC Med Center in November of 1981, precosely as the album was hovering to the top ten on Billboard. Then, by  New Year's eve, he was taken to intensive care. His family had arrived  in San Francisco and they feared the worst thing due to his critical condition. A little while later, Sylvester  arrived after touring and upon arriving at the hospital,  his friends asked him to tell and promise Patrick anything just to give him some hope or something to live for. Patrick was, somehow, asking them to let him die and his father was freaking out that they, his friends,  were telling Sylvester to do this. 

                                   "I would go there as much as I possibly could, and read my bible and just be with him. I finally just told him that he had to get better.I told him that we just had to do a record together, that everyone was waiting on a joint project from us, and that he just had to try harder. I told him I wasn't going to have it anymore and to get his ass up so we could go to work."  (SYLVESTER)

So ,miraculously, Patrick got on his feet again and left the hospital. He went over to Paul Parker and Ken Crivello's house to get over. It was a very difficult time. Paul was working in a hospital at that time in a cancer unit  as a unit coordinator.
Other friends would not come around, because AIDS was so unknown, they thought they might catch it like catching a cold. Paul and Ken took care of him the best they could, carrying him  upstairs 72 steps and nursing him for about a month.

After that, Patrick would sometimes visit them, but he was so thin and weak that Paul had to carry him upstairs on his back  whenever he dropped by and whenever they could receive him.. It was a great pleasure for Patrick, at those moments, to watch  those stairs from Paul's back. Paul weighed 185 lbs. of solid build at the time, but Patrick weighed less than 100 lbs.

After a time, as though his friend Sylvester were a real Messiah, Patrick was again on his feet into the studio and with a $500 budget, they recorded one of the all time dance clasics, 'Do Ya Wanna Funk'. Sylvester was going down at that moment, but this hit gave him a chance to retrieve fame. 

His musical fellows watched his life fade away, though he was always brave and funny. He never complained, and he kept making his art till the end. He would go into the studio and work, making jokes about  his hospital stays. He even had a sense of humor even about his pain; he got so thin  that it hurt him to be sitting for a long time because his bones were so close to the skin; there was no fat tissue on them and Pat would laugh about that instead of complaining. Despite having a great talent, he would listen to his friends's ideas and work on them.

                    " Paul y Ken were very beautiful and supportive through the whole thing. You kind of forget how close we all were at one time, with us doing our own thing and everybody else doing theirs, but at one time we were all like a family and spent a lot more time together." (JO-CAROL BLOCK)

                      " Working with Patrick was always a joy,  because he always tried to bring out the best in me and show it off and I'm grateful for that. He had no ego with me and vice-versa and even while he was sick he put a lot of joy into his music, for the sheer pleasure of it and not for any ego-gratification whatsoever." (LINDA IMPERIAL)

                      "On the last day od Patrick's life I came over and found his nurse talking on the phone and smoking a cigarette. I blew up at her because one thing Patrick would never allow was smoking in his home.  I yelled at her, and told her nover to do it again. When I finally went in to see Patrick there was water welling up in his eyes, but he couldn't talk at that point. By the time, I got home from his house, they called and said  he was gone. " (KEN CRIVELLO)

THE  LAST  ALBUM                                         

  Cowley seemed to reach the top of success as well as  his disease's with the release of "Mind Warp" which had wonderful special effects. This would be his last album, amazingly made with a Patrick who already was in a wheelchair.

"Mind Warp", the album of death, as his fellows called it, would have as collaborators among others to Michael Bailey ( mix consultant), Jo-Carol Block , Lauren Carter y Paul Parker (vocals ), Peter y Mary Buffet (chant),  John Hedges, Jeff Mehl y Jim Saunders (chant), David Frazier ( percussion), Tip Wirrick ( guitar),  Maureen Droney and Gordon Lyon (sound engineers), Ken Kessie ( engineer and remixer) y Marty Blecman (remix and associate producer).

This album was recorded by Maureen Droney and mixed by Ken Kessie. They started early in the morning until 11:00 am , the time that Maureen had to leave.

                             "During that period of Patrick's life it was very obvious through his song-writing what was on his mind. 'They Came At Night' was a very ominous , paranoid kind oi song, dealing with the forces of darkness and things involved with the unknown. He died a short while after finishing 'Going Home' which was also indicative of his situation at the time "  (PAUL PARKER)

                         " What really destroyed me was how (at the end) he became so bitter. All of the plans we had made for future proyects were getting so far out of reach for him. He was so bitter, and I was so unhappy, but I was still there with him until i had to leave to tour Europe. I remember I went to visit him the day before I left. He looked terrible and was in a very foul mood, saying some mean things to me, and i said : 'Patrick, I'm not going to allow this to taint the way I feel or what i have to say to you, because I love you, and we're gonna try to pull it all together. If you can't do it now, just wait and then we'll really do it, we'll just really do it. ' He just looked at mewith those enormous blue eyes that he had and just smiled (sort of) not saying anything." (SYLVESTER)

Megatone had released  "Mind Warp" and  Marty Blecman and his people made a tribute to Patrick at the Galleria Design Center ( 101 Henry Adam Street ) with the presentation of the album. Patrick Cowley was so sick that he couldn't attend. Part of his medical team put him in a wheelchair and snuck him out of the hospital so that he could see the party.
Then, upstairs on a balcony in his wheelchair , very weak and sick, and by moments quite moved, he just watched the great party taking place downstairs as the result of his musical genius.     

               " I remember that night ! Lauren and I were singing 'They Came at Night'... we had this choreography, I remember - we were choreographed by one of the choregraphers from the TV show Dance Fever...  we were on stage and there were all these lasers going and something was dripping on us and we thought we were going to be electrocuted!  Patrick was in a wheelchair, but they set up this big fabulous leather chair for him in the center of the balcony to hold court and watch the show. It was very emotional."  (JO-CAROL BLOCK) 

                        "I didn't see Patrick as much as I could or should have towards the end because of a lot of traumatic circunstances, including my own illness at the time, plus I hate to admit it, but I held a lot of childish feelings of...  jealousy( I guess) at his success, wich always went unresolved . I visited him once in the hospital, and it just blew my mind because I had no idea of the scope of his illness or just how sick he wasbecause nobody really understood at the time. It was apparent though, that he was not long for this world. And yet he was achieving all of this unending success. He called me after that and I told him how happy I was that his music was doing so well, because at that point everything he did just rocketed up the charts, and all he could say was: 'What's the use of it ? '. I could tell that he was in tears. It was very tough." (MICHAEL FINDEN)