THE music of Chet Atkins will be heard at the Laurel and Hardy Museum once more, with Matt Cowe returning for his second performance at the Ulverston venue.

The local guitarist will be running through a full set featuring the music of the American guitar legend, playing classic country and swing tunes from the 50s, as well other tunes from Chet’s long career.

He first performed the live show at the Museum back in November, and has since taken it to Lakes venue Zeffirellis.

Matt has long been an aficionado of Chet’s music and has studied it closely for the past 10 years. Much of the set - next Friday, March 31 - features on his CD, Matt Cowe Plays Chet Atkins, which was released last year.

Also in 2016, he headed to Nashville, where he was invited to play at the prestigious annual Chet Atkins Appreciation Society Convention. This event gathers the best "fingerpickers" from around the world every year and included such luminaries as Tommy Emmanuel, Richard Smith and Guy Van Duser, who are all giants of the genre. Matt got to play three times on various stages at the event and was hailed a success.

Chet pioneered a style of guitar playing where the guitar plays the bass, rhythm and melody all at the same time which dumbfounded his contemporaries and to this day is still considered a very difficult style to master.

In Ulverston, Matt will be recreating Chet’s retro sound with an authentic line-up, featuring local musicians Steve Simpson on double bass, Jack Davies on drums and Jon Moore on rhythm guitar.

Matt says: "I’m really looking forward to playing in Ulverston again at the Laurel and Hardy Museum. It’s a great venue and we all had a good time last November.

"This time I’ll be playing a new set of all instrumentals. The band played at Zeffirellis in Ambleside a couple of weeks ago and it went really well - we are all really getting the 50s retro sound together now and the audience there were very appreciative too.

"I had lots of comments about how nice it was to hear something so different and even some fans who found me on my YouTube channel and travelled especially to see us.

"It will be a fun show of great guitar music."

Doors open at 8pm on Friday March 31, and tickets are available in advance from the Laurel and Hardy Museum. Entrance includes a free drink, and there will also be a raffle on the evening.