Lowery spent most of his musical career as a performer, manager, and band leader with different traveling circuses.

[3] In 1895 Lowery performed the cornet in a band for the show Darkest America, with the Mallary Brothers Minstrels.

[2][4] In the summer of 1898 he played solo cornet at the Trans-Mississippi Exposition in Omaha, Nebraska with the Original Nashville Students.

Lowery led and managed bands in circus sideshow tents for the remainder of his career.

Lowery, "strove toward social and economic equality through hard work and artistic and musical achievement.