During the Great Depression of 1929, young Bill Fowler taught himself to play blues harmonica, dirt-band mandolin, Dixieland tenor banjo, and finally jazz guitar, ending up at age 17 in a Salt Lake City speakeasy trio. Still unable to read music at 21, Bill headed a Continental combo at Sun Valley, Idaho, Union Pacific's plush ski resort. In 1944, Bill married Beatrice Cottam, the daughter of University Botany Professor Dr.Walter P. Cottam. Marrying into this family meant your “degree” was a PhD and nothing less, but Bill’s education would have to wait until after the war. At 25, after induction into the U.S. Army during WWII, he put together a non-official battalion marching band, which upon landing in Marseilles, became a dance band/show group servicing ETO GI's. An exhausting attempt to write a parade arrangement of the French National Anthem soon convinced Bill of the wisdom of learning how to read music.

At war's end, Bill enrolled as a Music Major at the University of Utah. He studied there for seven years, broken only by intensive periods at the American Conservatory in Chicago and the Eastman School of Music. As Bill was pursuing his MFA and PhD degrees, Beatrice was caring for their growing musical aggregation, the five Fowler Brothers – Bruce, Steve, Tom, Walt, and Ed – all now pro performers.

While beginning his twenty-year stint at the Univ. of Utah, teaching subjects like 16th Century Counterpoint and Bach Chorale Harmony, Bill stayed active in classical composing – receiving a Rockefeller Foundation commission; winning the Siena International Choral Composition contest; and co-winning the American Division of the Prix Italia. He designed the first college Guitar Degree Program in the United States, which led to an invitation from Andres Segovia to study the Segovia techniques and teaching methods at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy.

All the while Bill headed combos around town; wrote and narrated a popular multi-media History of Jazz lecture; directed the Western Division of the National Stage Band Camps; and produced the Intermountain Jazz Festival and the clinics at the Mobile Festival. Along with C. Richard Evans, he co-invented the first Piezo-electric guitar pickup for Star Valley Electronics. 

Unsatisfied with strictly traditional music theory and wanting to prepare students for the real world, Bill initiated the Jazz Major at the U of U. The program focused on nomenclature and methodology used in motion pictures, television, and records. Bill designed a visiting faculty feature, inviting many great professional musicians from LA, NYC and elsewhere to come to the campus and teach week-long seminars. This approach proved hugely successful for the students, and many went on to highly successful careers.

Building on the diversity of his musical background, Bill opened a new career – writing –when he joined the staff of Down Beat magazine as Education Editor and regular columnist, a position he held some 13 years. Then he joined the staff of Keyboard magazine as Theory Columnist for 7 years.

In 1974, Bill moved to the University of Colorado at Denver. The same year he formed his own publishing company, Fowler Music Enterprises, which has produced more than 22 books.

After retiring from the University of Colorado in 1994, Bill moved to Los Angeles, where he continued to compose in a variety of styles, from symphonic works to popular songs.