Born in Portland, Oregon in 1955, Towner Galaher picked up drums at age nine and was dedicated to them from an early age. "I went to an alternative high school so I got to practice drums like five or six hours a day all through high school, which was a good thing for me," he recalls. "And I went straight from high school into the club scene and I continued playing there for the next 11 years, playing the whole gamut of gigs. I was in a nine-piece rhythm and blues band with horns that did original music along with all the old Motown stuff and more modern Earth Wind & Fire, Tower of Power stuff."

His Portland drumming mentor was Mel Brown, who played jazz in between tours with his two main gigs, The Temptations and The Supremes. Galaher's long career in education began in 1980 at Brown's Drum Shop, and has since developed into over 30 years of teaching at community centers, giving private lessons from music stores and his home studio, and more than 14 years in New York City Public Schools. Now a New York resident, Galaher has garnered much respect as an educator committed to mentoring and passing the baton to younger generations. It was in a local school that jazz drumming great Art Blakey helped encourage Galaher to move to New York City. "Art was at a high school in town giving a concert and lecture. And he was saying something about, 'You should get all the experience you can and then come to New York, where all the action is.' And that was kind of an affirmation of where I was headed anyhow."

Towner finally made the move to the Big Apple in the Fall of 1986 and signed up for a 10-week certified program at the Drummer's Collective, where he met and began studying with Headhunters drummer Mike Clark. "I made a really great connection with him right off the bat and that really fortified the trajectory of my musical direction in jazz." He subsequently studied Afro-Cuban drumming with Frankie Malabe, Brazilian drumming with Duduka da Fonseca, and New Orleans drumming with Ricky Sebastian. Galaher organically blended all of those diverse rhythmic elements on his 2007 debut as a leader, Panorama, and followed up with an equally impressive display on 2009's Courageous Hearts. He's continued to record and perform steadily since, most recently with 2025's Brothers.