Feature: Edwards engineer sings with heart, shares talents at local venues

Published Jan. 12, 2011
By Kenji Thuloweit
95th Air Base Wing Public Affairs

PALMDALE, Calif. -- A crowd was packed inside a local mediterranean restaurant here and was engaged for nearly three hours as Jennifer Housholder strummed her guitar and sang from her heart.

The 419th Flight Test Squadron radar lead engineer entertained a standing-room-only Friday-night crowd at Fresco II in Palmdale, Calif., Jan. 7, 2011.

While patrons were enjoying their food and drinks, Ms. Housholder and her guitar treated the crowd to both original and cover songs. She performed covers from artists such as Tom Petty and The Pretenders, and original songs like "Stay with Me" and "In My Heart."

"In recent months I've been playing at Fresco II. When they were in Lancaster, I would play every Thursday night starting in the summer," said Ms. Housholder. "After they moved to Palmdale and opened up in November, I started doing Friday nights."

Although she performed solo on this particular Friday night, she also performs occasionally with her band mates, which make up the group Hous-Band.

Ms. Housholder first came to Edwards Air Force Base in 1999 after being commissioned as a lieutenant in the Air Force. She first worked for the 31st Test and Evaluation Squadron and later for the F-22 Combined Test Force as an electronic warfare officer.

When she decided to leave active duty, the Pennsylvania native stayed in California and joined the California National Guard as an Army officer.

"I didn't even have a week of training on the differences between the Air Force and the Army on etiquette. I went straight into the Army as a captain and show up on my first drill. It was in December and I had my sleeves rolled up -- because in the Air Force you're allowed to do that. You can wear them rolled up or down no matter what everyone else is doing. That's not the case with the Army. I'm the only one in an Army uniform with my sleeves rolled up and a lieutenant tells me, 'You know, ma'am, you might want to roll down your sleeves.' I took it as a suggestion, not realizing I really had to do it to look like everyone else. There were a few things I had to learn off the cuff."

These days, when she's not running radar testing for three bomber platforms, or recording new songs in the studio, Ms. Housholder plays yet another role as an Army Blackhawk pilot in the Army Reserve.

Major Housholder is an S-3 Special Projects officer for the 244th Aviation Brigade out of Fort Dix, N.J. She flies out of the old George Air Force Base in Victorville, Calif.

Ms. Housholder says she draws her inspiration for her songs from her feelings within and from her experiences abroad. It's her two deployments to the Middle East as an Army helicopter pilot that have inspired her to write some new songs such as "Stay with Me" which is available on iTunes and Amazon music.

"It's always been the same thing and that's communicating what's in my heart, expressing what I'm moved by, things I'm working through and struggling through."

"I started writing 'Stay with Me' a month and a half before we left Kuwait in 2009. I was on a deployment with the Army. I had the music and an idea of what I wanted to do with the song. 'Stay with me' was the pervasive thought in my head. Those who have been deployed, sometimes it's very hard coming back and reintegrating into life, and it's very stressful on the relationships back home."

She is currently working on a total of 10 songs in the studio and is hoping to release an extended play single, which has more music than a single -- usually four or five tracks -- but not enough to be considered a full album.

When it comes to her musical future, Ms. Housholder said she doesn't know how things will unfold but it looks promising.

"I never imagined it would be what it is now," she said. "If you asked me 10 years ago, I wouldn't have thought I'd be doing this and that I'd have something out on iTunes."

Ms. Housholder said that her musical career's path may be guided, in part, by the messages listeners take away from her music.

"I don't know that I have it all figured out, but what I do know is there is something that people are responding to out of the music and maybe something out of the writing. Maybe those things can be a help and a positive thing, so if that's the case then I hope it [music career] will continue on where it needs to go."