Michael Tarbox (far left) and his Ramblers have meandered a long way from their Boston roots.

The image of the artist driven to succeed against all odds is a pervasive one in contemporary music, perhaps because the overwhelming majority of artists fit the profile. But not every musician who plays for his supper is necessarily panning for gold in every available industry stream.

Bostonian Michael Tarbox is a case in point. When he founded his Garage-tinged Blues outfit, Tarbox Ramblers, back in the mid-'90s, he had few ambitions beyond having some fun playing a style of music he loved.

"I played in Rock bands, more like Punk bands and noise bands," says Tarbox from his band's sold-out Washington, D.C., tour stop. "Those were pretty obscure bands. I think we just played at parties and stuff. Out of that I ended up playing this kind of early Tarbox Ramblers sound with a couple of friends, late-night hanging out, just playing old Blues music. That was a real informal thing."

Tarbox was no Blues newcomer. His love of the genre had been seeded by his childhood exposure to his mother's musical interests, which ultimately blossomed into a desire to play that music himself.

"I heard a lot of Blues records and Folk records when I was a kid, thanks to my mom and her friends," Tarbox says. "I always listened to that stuff in some form or another. And there were always bands like the Stones when I was a kid that were playing music that drew on all that and kept my interest alive.

"Along the way, there were records by Leadbelly, Mississippi John Hurt and Robert Johnson always around. And over the years, I just picked things up. A lot of times, I wouldn't have heard of the person, but the cover was so compelling."

By 1994, Tarbox's late-night Blues jams had actually coalesced into a real working band that the guitarist christened "Tarbox Ramblers." Even with the sound and lineup of the Ramblers somewhat solidified, there was still a loose impermanence to the band's structure.

"I was playing National steel guitar, and it was pretty down home," he says. "It was really Country Blues that we were playing, or at least our version of Country Blues. Then it went through a few configurations. We actually expanded very briefly into this big lineup with singers -- it was like a Gospel band for like five gigs. But we couldn't sustain that."

After a couple of years of experimentation with the sound, Tarbox settled on the raucous translation of the Delta Blues that he and the Ramblers eventually offered on their self-titled debut album in 2000. But before the release of that first album, the Ramblers did a great deal of playing in and around Boston with little thought given to next steps.

"I wasn't particularly ambitious," Tarbox says. "I didn't know anyone who was playing that kind of music, and I didn't think anyone would be interested. It seemed so obscure to me, and it really felt like we were playing for our friends."

The Ramblers wound up securing a regular Friday night gig, which led to a regular Saturday night gig. The combination of the two forced the band to rehearse and arrange material and got them tight in a hurry.

They'd put together a poorly recorded demo they intended to shop around, but their Saturday night gig was a mile from the offices of Rounder Records, and executives from the label dropped in, unsolicited, to catch their act.

Without ever having sent out their demo, The Ramblers signed with Rounder in 1999. Their first album came out the following year.

In the four years between the release of the debut and their latest album, A Fix Back East, a great deal has happened for the band. The lineup changed slightly, Tarbox hired a booking agent and the Ramblers set out for their first full-scale tours of the country.

Tarbox also began to write more songs. The first album had been primarily their takes on traditional material they liked and knew. The new material was taking on a different kind of slant.

"I was sort of trying to find a way to get a different sound," Tarbox says. "I felt as though it would be unwise to play the same type of music, to just play old songs and a few originals. I love that old music, but I felt it was time to start writing."

The result of Tarbox's reevaluation of the Ramblers' sound has been the deliberate and reverential Blues of A Fix Back East. With brilliantly understated production help (from legendary boardsman Jim Dickinson in Memphis and veteran producers Paul Kolderie and Sean Slade in Boston), the Ramblers have found a way to invest their original songs with flawless authenticity.

"I didn't think of myself as working in that style," Tarbox says. "I felt pretty free to do whatever I wanted to do. I listen to a lot of Rock music, so I felt whatever happens happens. And obviously I've been playing a certain type of music for a long time, so it's bound to be in there.

"Writing is definitely work. I have to apply myself. I'm not that disciplined. If I get up early and drink my coffee and read a lot and think about what I want to do, it seems to happen. It's very time consuming. Some people write quickly, but I'm not one of them."