June 27, 2010 – Harold Cowart was born June 12, 1944. Raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Cowart began his music career as a teenager, originally playing with Lenny Capello and the Dots. American bassist and occasional trumpet player born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He began his career in his teens, playing with Lenny Capello and the Dots, before becoming a member of the band John Fred and His Playboys, where he created one of the most memorable bass lines in The Beatle penned “Judy In Disguise (With Glasses)“, which topped the US pop charts for two weeks in 1968.
Following his ’60s run with John Fred Gourrier and the Playboy Band, Cowart moved to Miami and recorded and toured with the Bee Gees and their younger brother, Andy Gibb.
During the 1970s he established himself a much sought-after studio musician, much of it at Miami’s Criteria Recording Studio, recording and playing with the Bee Gees and also contributing instrumentally to Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton’s “Islands in the Stream”, Brook Benton’s “Rainy Night in Georgia” (1969), Frankie Valli’s “Grease” (1978), Andy Gibbs’ album “Shadow Dancing” (1978), Jay Ferguson’s “Thunder Island” and the Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb duet “Guilty” (1980).
After subsequent years of obscurity playing Baton Rouge area clubs with Joe Landry and the Southland Band, Cowart joined the house band for the 1986 Cinemax special “Fats & Friends.” David Letterman’s band leader Paul Shaffer led the group (featuring Rolling Stone Ron Wood) as it backed rock ’n’ roll pioneers Fats Domino, Ray Charles and Jerry Lee Lewis.
In 1987 he opened his own recording studio named Bluff Roads Studio near his Prairieville home, where he produced a wide range of artists including Louisiana Boys, New Orleans trumpeter Al Hirt last album, and rapper Young Bleed.
He died on June 27, 2010 at the age of 66.
