All the way from Baton Rouge in Louisiana, Larry Garner will bring his award winning talent to the Eel Pie Club this month.

Garner will be joined by his “true musical soul mate” in British blues, veteran Norman Beaker – who recently played at the Eel Pie Club backing Chris Farlowe.

Garner won the fifth International Blues Challenge in 1988 with his Boogaloo Blues Band and has toured extensively since.

Garner has been singing all his life, but worked at a chemical delivery company for 20 years of his life due to the emergence of disco and decline of live music in his younger years.

He finally left the company after seeing success with his first single and has not looked back since.

Garner, 60, says: “When I was just a little kid I would sing in church. I was always around singing – with the travelling preachers and their guitars, I was singing in church from three years old and I started playing professionally at 12.”

Garner and Beaker have just finished 20 gigs in Austria and Germany and now have 14 gigs to play across England.

They have been friends ever since they met in 1992 at a festival where they bonded over Guinness.

Beaker says: “We met at festival in Burnley and we just sort of got along straight away.”

Larry Garner and the Norman Beaker Band; Eel Pie Club at the Patch, London Road, Twickenham, May 23. Doors open at 8.30pm, with music from 9.15pm. Tickets are £12 and are available on the door or online from eelpieclub.com, or call 08444 771000.

For more information on Garner, visit larrygarnerbluesman.com/calendar.cfm.