“I’m a true Gypsy bluesman,” says James Pobiega, better known as Little Howlin’ Wolf. “My creativity is totally different though, ’cause I take Zen and yoga and martial arts and mix that into my music. I’ll play three or four saxophones at the same time and play flutes through my nose. I’m like a big freak, being freaky.”

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Lately, however, he’s been discovered by a growing cult of freak-folk and outsider-art fans, including former Chicagoans Twig Harper and Carly Ptak of Nautical Almanac, who are now based in Baltimore. In the past year they’ve released two CD-Rs of Pobiega’s old singles on their own HereSee imprint, with a third planned for 2006, and this summer HereSee and the Baltimore label Ehse coreleased a new Little Howlin’ Wolf LP, Brave Nu World–Pobiega’s first recording in almost two decades. To celebrate he’ll open for Nautical Almanac at the Empty Bottle on Sunday (see the Treatment for more on the other bands).

“When I was three or four, I would hear Howlin’ Wolf play in my head. It was as if I was on the same wavelength that this guy was on. . . . Later on, I checked with other guys who were from the Mississippi Delta and they were just like me.”

Pobiega overflows with stories about his own fame and influence–he says he encouraged a struggling young Whitney Houston to pursue music, that he passed on a role in The A-Team so Mr. T could have it, and that George Thorogood stole his song “Bad to the Bone.” It’s hard to tell where the fantasy ends and the truth begins, but Pobiega does have a few battered briefcases full of clippings–everything from playbills and newspaper features to a two-page spread on him in People magazine that dates from his street-musician days. “I was like a full-fledged celebrity out there, man,” he says.

Though he can’t leave his parents for long, Pobiega has been playing a bit outside Chicago and just returned from a five-show trip to the Bay Area. He’s also acting again–he recently played a supporting role in Crab Orchard, an as-yet-undistributed independent film starring Ed Asner and Judge Reinhold, and he’s working occasionally with the Mary-Arrchie Theatre Company.

Where: Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western