Howlin' Hobbit

Howlin' Hobbit has been playing music and singing since grade school. That was somewhere back in the dark ages (and he has the report scrolls to prove it!).

Hobbit plays a variety of instruments, but his main "axes" are guitar, harmonica, and drums. Lately he's added a lot of ukulele (too much fun in a tiny package) and, of course, the inimitable washboard.

Besides his solo efforts over the years Hobbit has been in a number of bands, duos and trios, both acoustic and electric. He says his favorite ones up until the Emerald City Jug Band were an electric rock band called the PropellorHeads, formed of fellow high-tech industry folks and Peanut Envy, an acoustic blues band that was an offshoot of the PropellorHeads and featured most the same personnel.

For many years Hobbit has been a busker at the Pike Place Market in Seattle, Washington, playing mainly blues on guitar and harmonica. In the summer of 2001 he played washboard with Patsy Fuller, a guitar and banjo player from the U.K., and was featured in that capacity (as well as vocals and harmonica) on her CD 'Twixt Pike & Pine.

Hobbit brings a dry and sometimes biting wit to the line-up as well as driving "jazz drum" rhythms on the washboard. He says he considers it just a portable drum kit and tries to play it as such.

Constantly curious, Hobbit spends a lot of time pondering such deep questions as... If it's tourist season, why can't we hunt them?