Jim Cullum first heard Howard Elkins playing in El Paso, Texas in 1978. Howard joined the band the next day and he has been holding down the guitar/banjo chair in the group ever since. Howard proved to be a rhythm guitarist par excellence and provides rock-solid time to the band’s rhythm section. He is the composer of the Riverwalk Jazz theme “Nightspell.” Elkins plays a 1920s vintage Epiphone archtop, four-string tenor guitar and a 1930s Gibson tenor banjo. When he’s not working with the band Howard enjoys tending his ten-acre pecan grove southwest of San Antonio.