Johnny Cowell (11 January 1926 in

Tillsonburg Tillsonburg is a town in Oxford County, Ontario, Canada with a population of 18,615 located about 50 kilometres southeast of London, on Highway 3 at the junction of Highway 19. History Prior to European settlement, the present site of Tillso ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

– 22 January 2018) was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

er,

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

and

arranger In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orches ...

.Johnny Cowell
in the Canadian encyclopedia

Early life

Cowell's father and three uncles were members of the Tillsonburg Town Band, and Cowell played his first trumpet solo with this band at age six. Cowell joined the Toronto Symphony Band in 1941 at the age of 15 as trumpet soloist. Cowell was largely self-taught but after joining the Toronto Symphony Band he studied briefly with Edward Smeale in Toronto. He served during World War II as soloist with the Royal Canadian Navy band in Victoria, BC, and played first trumpet from 1943 to 1945 with the Victoria Symphony Orchestra. He later studied composition at the Royal Conservatory of Music (RCMT) with Oskar Morawetz and John Weinzweig. From 1952 to 1991 he played with the

Toronto Symphony Orchestra The Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) is a Canadian orchestra based in Toronto, Ontario. Founded in 1906, the TSO gave regular concerts at Massey Hall until 1982, and since then has performed at Roy Thomson Hall. The TSO also manages the Toronto ...

. Cowell composed more than 200 songs, almost 150 have been recorded and several of them have become well known. Among them ' Walk Hand in Hand', '

His Girl "His Girl" is a song written by Johnny Cowell and performed by The Guess Who. In its original recorded version, it reached #19 in Canada. A remixed version, with an overdubbed string section and other embellishments, reached #45 in the United K ...

,' and '(These Are) the Young Years' with

Floyd Cramer Floyd Cramer (October 27, 1933 – December 31, 1997) was an American pianist who became famous for his use of melodic "half step" attacks. He was inducted into both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His signature ...

. His song 'Walk Hand in Hand' (1956) has been recorded over 90 times making Cowell one of Canada's most successful songwriters He composed the trumpet instrumental '' Our Winter Love'' that

Bill Pursell William Whitney Pursell (June 9, 1926 – September 3, 2020) was an American composer and onetime session pianist. He had a brief but successful career as a pop musician before continuing on as a session player. Pursell is best known for the to ...

later arranged for piano in a No. 9 hit on the

Billboard Hot 100 The ''Billboard'' Hot 100 is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for songs, published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine. Chart rankings are based on sales (physical and digital), radio play, and online streaming ...

, in addition to hitting No. 4 on the

Easy Listening Easy listening (including mood music) is a popular music genre and radio format that was most popular during the 1950s to 1970s. It is related to middle-of-the-road (MOR) music and encompasses instrumental recordings of standards, hit songs, n ...

chart, and No. 20 on the Hot R&B Singles chart

Billboard Singles A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large out-of-home advertising, outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboard ...

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

in the Spring of 1963.

Private life

Cowell married his wife Joan on 26 September 1953. They met six years earlier when he began playing trumpet for the dance band in which Joan was the vocalist. Cowell and his wife have a daughter, Marcie and three grandchildren. He died on 22 January 2018.Johnny Cowell
/ref>

Discography

Cowell has released more than 10 LPs and CDs. * 1997 - ''The Art of Johnny Cowell''

References

External links

Johnny Cowell's website
1926 births 2018 deaths Canadian composers Canadian male composers Canadian trumpeters Male trumpeters Musicians from London, Ontario {{Canada-composer-stub