Grammy Award-Winning Recording Engineer, Jazz Preservationist. The prolific restorer of many classic jazz records, he shall remembered for his capturing of a 1940 Duke Ellington concert. Raised in eastern South Dakota, he attended South Dakota State University and served four years in the US Army during World War II. On November 7, 1940 Towers and a college friend attended an Ellington performance at Fargo, North Dakota and got permission to record the event for their own use. Using 16 inch acetate discs and three microphones they preserved a document of the evening's entertainment which sat in Towers' basement for almost 40 years, though occasional copies were made for friends. By the late 1970s, however, "pirates" had started to circulate, and, faced with legal action by the Ellington family, Towers and the Ellingtons mutually decided to publish the piece. "Duke Ellington at Fargo, 1940 Live" was sold as a three record set by the Book-of-the-Month Club in 1978 and won a 1980 Grammy for best jazz instrumental performance by a big band. Still in print, it remains prized by jazz fans as a documentation of what many consider to be Ellington's best period of work. Mr. Towers was a radio broadcaster for the US Department of Agriculture until his 1974 retirement; before and after leaving government service he was kept busy remastering old jazz discs to produce the sets sold by Time-Life Books and the Smithsonian Institution. He lived out his days in Ashton, Maryland and died in a hospice of complications from Parkinson's Disease.
Grammy Award-Winning Recording Engineer, Jazz Preservationist. The prolific restorer of many classic jazz records, he shall remembered for his capturing of a 1940 Duke Ellington concert. Raised in eastern South Dakota, he attended South Dakota State University and served four years in the US Army during World War II. On November 7, 1940 Towers and a college friend attended an Ellington performance at Fargo, North Dakota and got permission to record the event for their own use. Using 16 inch acetate discs and three microphones they preserved a document of the evening's entertainment which sat in Towers' basement for almost 40 years, though occasional copies were made for friends. By the late 1970s, however, "pirates" had started to circulate, and, faced with legal action by the Ellington family, Towers and the Ellingtons mutually decided to publish the piece. "Duke Ellington at Fargo, 1940 Live" was sold as a three record set by the Book-of-the-Month Club in 1978 and won a 1980 Grammy for best jazz instrumental performance by a big band. Still in print, it remains prized by jazz fans as a documentation of what many consider to be Ellington's best period of work. Mr. Towers was a radio broadcaster for the US Department of Agriculture until his 1974 retirement; before and after leaving government service he was kept busy remastering old jazz discs to produce the sets sold by Time-Life Books and the Smithsonian Institution. He lived out his days in Ashton, Maryland and died in a hospice of complications from Parkinson's Disease.
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