Artists:Jay Howlett

Jay Howlett says that his whole reason for picking up a guitar was to write songs. Growing up in Upstate New York he joined a band in the sixth grade because he was the only kid with a tape recorder. “My first guitar was an electric guitar that my brother built for me. My second guitar was my sister’s nylon strung classical that I ruined with steel strings.”

Howlett now lives on the Pacific coast in San Mateo County just south of San Francisco. Playing acoustic steel string guitars and using multiple capos with holes cut in them he gets some very bizarre fingerings and interesting chord voicings. He first saw Carol McComb use a banjo capo on a guitar leaving the low E open, when he got home he started cutting holes in his capos. “I wrote my first song with a cut capo at the 1994 Rocky Mountain Folks Festival while camping in Rocky Mountain National Park.”

Howlett left his day job behind and started just playing music in California, Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming, Oregon, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine. Festivals, clubs, coffee houses, bars and a clothing optional resort were all part of the touring and the future will be even busier.

On WWR Howlett is known as BBWW.