EUGENE 'Hideaway' Bridges will perform tomorrow at the Brontë Blues Club with his band.

Club spokesman Maggie Marsden said: “Eugene plays guitar like BB King and sings like Sam Cooke, an irresistible combination, which is why we’ve invited him back for a third time!”

Eugene Bridges, born in 1963, is an American blues and soul singer, songwriter, guitarist and bandleader.

He has released seven albums and performed widely in the US, Britain, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

He has been nominated for the Blues Foundation’s Blues Music Awards – regarded as the blues Oscars – seven times.

Eugene was born in New Orleans, the fourth of five children, and was raised in Amite, Louisiana.

His father, Otheneil Bridges, performed as a blues guitarist under the name ‘Hideaway Slim’, and his mother was a relative of Tina Turner.

In his early teens Eugene began singing with his brothers as a gospel group, The Bridges Brothers, and also formed his own R&B band, The Five Stars.

At the age of 16 he moved to Texas to join the US Air Force, and played in an Air Force band for three years.

After leaving, he joined a gospel group, The New Chosen, on guitar and vocals, and then joined the Mighty Clouds of Joy.

On moving to Houston Eugene formed his own band, which since then has been known as the Eugene "Hideaway" Bridges Band, and the musicians began touring in the US.

Eugene is recalled how, during his days as Hideaway Slim, his father had a 1964 Harmony Rocket H59 guitar.

Eugene said: “One day he sat me up in the middle of the bed where I could not fall and placed his beautiful guitar on my lap, it was too big to hold on to.

“I didn’t know what to think when he put the strap around my neck and placed my fingers in the frets.

“I was four years old – this was my first chord.”

The Brontë Blues Club, in Laycock Village Hall, will open its doors at 7.30pm and house band BBC5 will be in support.

Tickets cost £10 by visiting bronteblues.com or calling at the Turkey Inn, Goose Eye.