Thirty-six years ago, Bob Pace picked up his first guitar. His professional career began only six years later. For the last 10 years, he has played almost weekly at Blues on Grand in Des Moines. And if you go there Tuesday, you’ll find the Bob Pace Band on stage once again, playing “a little bit of everything,” as Bob Pace describes it.

“I’m pretty loose when it comes to playing shows,” Pace says. “I don’t usually have a set list, and we’ll pretty much play whatever I feel like that night.”

This can range from rockabilly to delta blues to country, to what Pace calls “blues with a rock edge, in the style of Jimi Hendrix or Johnny Winter.”

Johnny Winter, along with artists such as Sonia Dada and Bernard Allison, are just a few of the nationally acclaimed acts that Bob Pace and his band have played with over the years.

“We’ve been really fortunate to be the opening act for almost anyone that has played at Blues on Grand over the last several years,” Pace says. “I’m very grateful to be able to do what I do.”

Pace’s attitude may be a bit modest, considering that he has built a reputation as a versatile and talented guitarist, a reputation that has led him to perform and jam with many of the top names in the blues genre.

As well-seasoned as he may be on guitar, Pace hasn’t limited himself — he plays and teaches everything from drums to mandolin to harmonica, and specializes in all species of stringed instruments.

“Almost anything with strings I can at least teach, if not play it really well,” Pace says. “I’ve taught and played music almost all my life.”

Throughout this lifelong musical journey, Bob Pace has developed a guitar style all his own, although Pace admits to being heavily influenced by Carlos Santana, Muddy Waters and Eric Clapton. Pace has a particularly special bond with Clapton.

“Lots of people say I look like him, which I take as a compliment, and lots of people say I play like him, which I take as an even bigger compliment,” Pace says.

Pace will be appearing on stage tonight with his longtime friend Dale Rupp on drums and his 23-year-old son Nick on bass. They will play a free show with plenty of cover songs as well as original songs, although Pace says the group is trying to gear toward all self-written material.

The band is working hard toward this goal, playing gigs four nights a week. Shows are booked solid for the next four months. Although Pace hasn’t released any albums during the course of his musical career, he plans to make up for it this summer with two new releases.

The first will be a hardcore, straight-ahead blues CD with The Bob Pace Band, and the second will be a Bob Pace “solo” album featuring more folksy, acoustic, Americana-twinged music. Pace wrote most of the songs for both albums.

“[The Bob Pace band] is slowly trying to become an all-original band,” Pace says. “I’m finally at the point where I think I can take my music one notch higher and become an artist really worth hearing.”