FOR an evening of discrete charm and positive energy, seek an audience with Eric Bibb, (pictured) in the Coal Exchange this month.

The acoustic bluesman plays the prestigious Cardiff venue on Wednesday November 14, only five years after he made his first prominent performance at the London Blues Festival.

Eric's music is sensitive and intimate with crisp singing and fine finger picking on the guitar. The style is drenched in American blues with an added awareness of America folk, Celtic ballads and French impressionism.

"What I do is basically carry on, or pass on, song traditions - putting my spin on it in the process," he said.

Eric made his debut late in life but has since been compared to the likes of Ry Cooder, Key Mo and Taj Mahal. He is now 50 and has played guitar since he seven.

A native New York, he has a musical family to rival any other: He is the son of folk and musical theatre singer and television personality, Leon Bibb, who made his name on the 60s' Greenwich Village Folk Scene, which was also home to Bob Dylan for a spell.

Bibb's uncle is world famous jazz pianist and composer John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet and his godfather was none other than human rights activist, singer and friend to Pontypool, Paul 'ol' man river' Robeson.

With such a pedigree it is tempting to think he had to follow a career in music, but it could have all been very different for the psychology and Russian student at Columbia University.

"What I got from my teachers was the desire to go to the bottom of the well with music, an understanding that one never quite reaches the bottom," he said.

* Eric Bibb plays the Coal Exchange, Cardiff on Wednesday November 14. Tickets are tbc. Dial (029) 202049 4917 for more details.