BATH – The Chocolate Church Arts Center is presenting “An Evening with John Hammond” at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 30. This is part of the Sweet Blues Series at the arts center.

Hammond has spent 40 years entertaining blues, folk and rock audiences around the world, performing intense solo-acoustic blues.

A Grammy Award winner and four-time nominee, Hammond is a multiple W.C. Handy Award winner who’s shared the stage or recorded with such masters as Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, John Lee Hooker and Howlin’ Wolf. Hammond has recorded more than 25 albums.

His passionate commitment to traditional blues made him the choice to host “The Search for Robert Johnson,” a Bravo TV special.

Born in 1942, Hammond is the son of John Hammond, a legendary Columbia Records talent scout who discovered Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen; but he was raised mostly by his mother. A lifelong New Yorker, who now calls Jersey City home, Hammond bought his first guitar when he turned 18. Almost immediately, he was on the Greenwich Village club scene and, by 1963, was accomplished enough to share a Newport Folk Festival bill with Mississippi John Hurt.

“I was inspired initially by Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley,” Hammond says. “Then I discovered the roots of it all. When I began playing professionally, I incorporated all my passions into what I did solo. I did Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley songs as well as Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. I saw how they could make something come alive and be just as important as it was ages ago.”

For more information about the arts center’s upcoming events, people can visit the Web site, chocolatechurcharts.org.

Tickets for “An Evening with John Hammond” are $22 in advance, $20 for seniors, $25 at the door. Call the arts center at 442-8455.