HE supported Grammy-nominated James Hunter last year and Gary Porter’s record has been making waves on the international scene.

Picked up by radio DJs in Spain, where he’s enjoying something of a cult following, the Westcliff artist and his band return for a hometown gig tonight at Riga to showcase some of the musical magic.

A mixture of jazz, blues and ska, their album Can’t Keep Still has had accolades flooding in and Gary’s looking forward to sharing some of the new sounds with a Westcliff audience.

“It should be a pretty good evening,” he says. “It’s going great – touch wood – and we’ll be playing all the songs on the new album, which has been album of the week over in Spain.

“We have a couple of tracks off the next album that I’m writing at the moment, plus there’ll be a couple of back catalogue old songs from our previous albums.”

Gary is thrilled with the Spanish reaction to the record and says: “It’s great because you never know how music’s going to be accepted.”

He is at Riga, Milton Road, Westcliff, tonight from 8pm. Entry on the door is £10.