Uke Makers: Pete Howlett Shines his Light of Knowledge to Guide Future Generations

BY AARON KEIM | FROM THE FALL 2026 ISSUE OF UKULELE MAGAZINE

A man of skill, hard work, creativity, and faith, Pete Howlett is a foundational part of the ukulele revival of the 21st century. Since the early 1990s, he has built ukuleles and guitars in his rural Wales workshop inspired by classic techniques while also embracing innovation. His most widely recognized design, the Revelator, was purchased by Kala a few years ago and has since made a big impact on the ukulele world as a production model. He is also known as a teacher and steward of the craft, freely sharing his techniques on the internet and with a few apprentices in the shop. Tragically, Parkinson’s disease has slowed him down these days and he is no longer building—the instrument he was finishing when I spoke with him for this article was to be his last. After many busy years at the bench, he is now looking to his retirement and his legacy.

I first encountered Howlett through the Luthier’s Lounge forum on UkuleleUnderground.com when I began to build ukuleles around 2005. He was clearly a fine builder, showing both precision and creativity in his ukes. He was generous with advice, and quick to point out flaws in logic or bust internet myths about the craft. He had no patience with folks who just repeated what they read online with no actual bench experience, spreading misinformation in harmful ways. I studied his forum posts carefully and watched his YouTube videos for any small tips I could pick up. Even though we have never met in person, we have stayed in touch over the years and I am proud to call him a mentor. 

“If you have a light, don’t hide it under a bushel basket—share it,” says Howlett. “If you know something, share it with somebody else.”

Teacher in Training

Howlett was born in London in 1955. He learned to play the acoustic guitar at age 13, inspired by blues players like Reverend Gary Davis, Howlin’ Wolf, Blind Willie Johnson, and Robert Johnson. He was part of the acoustic blues circuit in the UK in the 1990s. “Pete would come and play with us in Bristol in the early ’90s,” says luthier and guitar picker Ben Bonham. “He was a quite good, aggressive, ragtime picker who played in the Blind Blake style. Everyone else played that style how Eric Clapton did it, but Pete did it properly, which made him a hero to me.”

Howlett trained as a teacher for UK schools, specializing in craft design and technology, then started building guitars in the early 1990s with Tony Revell. Their focus was on the small parlor guitar shapes that were popular with the original generation of acoustic blues artists. These sizes just weren’t available in the 1990s, when most people were playing jumbo and dreadnought guitars.

At a guitar show in Texas in 1994, Howlett met Collier Thelean from Music Exchange in Hilo, Hawaii, who was looking for some handmade koa ukes for the store. Kamaka was selling ukes at the time, but the rest of the big Hawaiian “K” brands weren’t quite up and running yet. He showed Howlett a nice uke for him to study and gave him some koa, but Howlett hit a few barriers while prototyping. For starters, information on how to build ukuleles was hard to find. And the only ukuleles in the UK that Howlett could find to study were not very nice, so it would be a trap to emulate them. Plus, there were only a couple of other ukulele builders in the UK at the time, and one of them only made banjo ukes. He pushed on despite the lack of educational resources and support, making up for it with tenacity and skill at the bench. 

He delivered two ukes to Music Exchange, where they were well received until a problem quickly developed: the bridges came off! Howlett didn’t know that a tenor uke needs an interior bridge plate to stiffen the top and keep it flat enough for the bridge to stay on. After connecting with luthier Bob Gleason to get some building advice, Howlett was off and running and eventually sold nearly 180 ukes to Music Exchange alone.

Ukes Take Center Stage

Around 2008, Howlett stepped away from teaching and focused on making ukes to pay the bills. Two important cultural touchstones had occurred in the UK which allowed him to try building full time: the viral video of Jake Shimabukuro playing “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain appearing on the Jools Holland television show on the BBC (when I met the Ukulele Orchestra at a festival in 2006, many of them already had a Howlett in their hands). These sparks ignited an ukulele scene in the UK that is still burning bright today. 

“I remember first meeting him in the early 2000s in London when he made ukes for (Orchestra members) George and Kitty,” says former Ukulele Orchestra member Will Grove-White, who is now a luthier himself. “After then we would always pop into his workshop if we were ever passing. (Orchestra member) Peter Brooke Turner always played Howlett ukes and when my Martin had to be retired I played a wonderful Howlett alder soprano, which I still have and love. It accompanied me to Carnegie Hall and Windsor Castle, where it played for the Queen.”

After a while, Howlett had a new shop but was burdened by debt and had problems fulfilling custom orders. So he dreamed up a simple design that could be made as quickly as possible, but still had great sound and playability. For the shape, he sketched a boat paddle design made of all solid wood. He promptly sold the first two dozen, erasing his debt. The model was named Marmite, after the savory British spread—you either loved it or hated it! The Marmite could be made quickly because the body had no complicated bending and there was little decoration. It was a dead-simple design, a hand-built ukulele that more people could afford. With the momentum from this project, Howlett was able to fill his commission book with more traditional ukulele models as well.  

“I think I’ve owned over a dozen Howlett ukes and currently have six,” says Paul Tucker, former manager of Southern Ukulele Store. “He really does make the very best instruments, and I’m pretty sure the customers I sold Howletts to whilst running the Southern Ukulele Store would agree. I don’t play Howletts because Pete gives them to me; I buy them and play them because I love them and the man who builds them.”

Sharing of Ideas

In 2010 Howlett was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, which was the start of new physical and emotional challenges. Parkinson’s is a neurological disease that gradually affects the body and the mind, a real problem for someone who uses their hands to make a living. He was able to keep building on his own until 2015, when a young man from Germany, Tom Ziegenspeck, approached him about an apprenticeship.

Ziegenspeck was a student at a German craft school, which sends students out for a year of practical work before they finish their capstone projects. “I had him here for two years, in which we had the most fun time,” says Howlett. “It really changed my life. He is a complete master of his craft, with a fantastic German craft education. We built 150 instruments together.”

I remember this time well, as Howlett’s productivity and public reach increased thanks to Ziegenspeck’s hard work in the shop and on YouTube. I never missed one of their videos, enjoying the energy that the collaboration produced. I took a lot of notes and tried some of his ideas at the bench myself as a junior builder at Mya-Moe Ukuleles. It turns out Howlett was watching our videos too, always willing to pick up a tip from my bosses, Gordon and Char Mayer, even though he was an established builder himself. 

A Revelation

In 2017 Howlett was building electric ukes with chambered bodies that were routed out on a CNC machine. Even though they were designed to be amplified, they still sounded good acoustically, which led him to develop the design further. He created a unique shape that blends curves and flat surfaces, with a slim body and a top with a gentle dome and minimal bracing. He installed an undersaddle pickup and the Revelator was born. “I believe there is no such thing as chance,” says Howlett. “God presents us with opportunities and if we pick up that opportunity, He will help us run with it.” 

The name is a tribute to the old Blind Willie Johnson song, with the lyric: “Tell me, who’s that writin’? John the Revelator.”

In a 2023 interview with Kala, Howlett said, “From that point forward, I began to research ways of actually building this instrument, which coincided with an event in my life, which was Parkinson’s. What I found was that I needed to have a way of building quality ukuleles that didn’t involve fine motor skills, which I am no longer capable of executing. I sold all the first models easily, and I thought, Well, this is worth looking at. I will reduce my standard catalog and concentrate on this.”

When Covid hit and his health further deteriorated, Howlett connected with Mike Upton at Kala about buying the Revelator design. After the deal was finished in 2023, Howlett went to California and guided Kala’s team through the building process. Since then, Kala has created three lines of the Revelator, some handmade in California and others made overseas. This collaboration has allowed Howlett to get closer to full retirement as Parkinson’s consumes more of his life.

Battling Parkinson’s

“I am in a constant struggle to get my medication right so that I am not feeling constantly ‘stoned,’” says Howlett. “The medication is very hard to control; some days I’m up and some days I’m down.”

Howlett is no longer taking orders for ukuleles and his last few builds are trickling through the finish and setup process. The Marmite has been taken over by builder Kevin Mulcock, and his other designs have been passed off to UK builders John Story and Daniel Lipson.

“Whenever I brought him something I’d done—a finished instrument, a piece of inlay, etc.—he’d find three things to say about it,” says Lipson. “First, he’d say something nice, something that made me feel that I’d achieved something in his eyes. Second, he’d say something I needed to improve that would make it better. Third, he’d ask me about how I did something or why I’d done it like that. He is a gentleman and a supportive teacher who is always interested in learning himself.”

Howlett still has a small shop that he works in when his health permits, but he is looking at full retirement soon. His wife, Helen, who has been a dedicated supporter at every phase of his life, is his full-time caregiver. “I thought I would build until I die, but that won’t be the case,” says Howlett. “I have had to swallow my envy as I watch others continue when I cannot.”

He quoted Scottish comedian Billy Connoly on Parkinson’s: “It’s like you are watching yourself walk away, but you can’t catch up.”

A “revelator” is someone who reveals. This can take the form of a teacher, a prophet, or a creator. Every time Howlett steps up to the woodworking bench, he takes the role of the revelator, showing the ideas that are in his head, the ethics in his heart, and the wisdom of his hands. What he creates is then placed in the hands of a musician, who uses it to create their own art, further revealing what they can offer. This labor has always been done with the mindset of a teacher, inspiring many builders to also become revelators—just like Howlett.