Trumpeter Bob Enos, on the far right in front, with his Roomful of Blues bandmates.

Russell Gusetti

Bob Enos, the trumpeter of Rhode Island blues legends Roomful of Blues, died in his sleep early Friday morning in a hotel room in Douglas, Ga., while the band was on tour, according to a statement from the band. He was 60.

Enos joined the group in 1981, making him the second-most tenured member after saxophonist Rich Lataille.

The band had played at the Douglas Country Club on Thursday night, according to the statement, and was on its way to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to embark on The Legendary Blues Cruise, a seven-day, multi-artist Caribbean jaunt that Roomful had played several times before.

The band was on the ship yesterday and could not be reached. According to the statement, the band is continuing its tour with former member John Wolfe succeeding Enos.

“Bob was one of a kind,” Roomful guitarist Chris Vachon said in the statement — “a unique talent. The band obviously feels devastated. When you work as closely together as a band as Roomful does, each person is family — we’re like brothers. It makes this kind of thing very hard indeed.”

“From the beginning Bobbie made me feel right at home,” former Roomful trombonist Carl Querfurth said in the statement. “His big, fat tone made everything sound so full — it was like riding on a big cushion.”

Bob Bell, Roomful’s former manager, remembers Enos’ audition, so to speak, for the band. They were playing at Harpo’s in Newport, where Enos lived, and he shuffled onto the stage wearing a nasty raincoat to play the last set. They were blown away by his playing, however, and took him on their first national tour, a five-week jaunt that left the next morning.

Enos was expecting a tour bus, Bell remembers, but a Chevrolet Suburban with nine guys in it and a U-Haul behind it was Roomful’s mode of transportation. “We went out for five weeks of intense torture,” Bell remembers.

Personality is as important as musicianship in a band like Roomful, Bell says, and Enos was just as much of a star in the van as on stage. “Any organization that deals in roots music, the rewards are artistic more than financial a lot of the time. You have to love what you’re doing, and you have to get along with the people you’re doing it with, because you are in tight quarters a lot of the time.”

Bell did a lot of the driving on the band’s tours, and Enos would usually sit shotgun. Bell remembers spending many hours talking and playing cassettes deep into the night.

Enos’ band nickname was “Big Guy” — “he was built like a bull,” Bell says — and “He was the consummate professional. He lived for the band. Obviously he loved his family, but he loved the band. He was always in good spirits, always made the gig . …

“He was a phenomenon, really, and people loved him, and as far as that goes, he’ll be irreplaceable.”

Enos studied at the New England Conservatory of Music, spent years apprenticing in R&B bands including Herb Reed’s Platters, then co-founded the jazz-fusion group Channel One in 1978 before getting the call from Roomful.

Saxophonist Greg Abate played with Enos in Channel One and in Jack Radcliffe and The New Vipers Revue, the progenitors of Channel One, starting in 1976. He remembers Enos as a player in the Louis Armstrong style, with an earthy, growly tone. “Very strong player, high energy. … We were doing a lot of Louie tunes, and Fats Waller and Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. That’s what the Vipers were known for.

“You couldn’t find anybody nicer than him. A real free spirit, a loving individual, and a family man.”

Greg Piccolo, who was in Roomful with Enos from 1981 to 1994, remembers Enos as “a monster … a bull. One thing we didn’t have before we got him was someone we could depend on in that lead trumpet spot. When we got him, that just brought it to another whole level. No matter what his personal issues may have been, he made it to the gig and he got to the first note and he blasted it out.”

Given the realities of road life, Piccolo says he wasn’t surprised that Roomful was continuing to work.

“I heard they were on the road, and I thought, ‘They’re not coming back.’ … If you’re already out on the road, you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do.”

Enos played on all Roomful’s albums after their first three, including their latest, Raisin’ a Ruckus, which comes out today and whose release the band will celebrate at the Blackstone River Theatre, in Cumberland, on Saturday, Jan. 26. He also played with the band’s horn section on guest appearances on records by Pat Benatar, Stevie Ray Vaughan and others.

Enos is survived by his wife, Jill; sons Louis, Jude and Joseph; and daughter Elizabeth. A scholarship fund for Louis, 13, has been set up (Enos’ other children are past college age) and Bell says a local-music show benefiting the fund will be held sometime in the next few months. In the meantime, donations can be sent to the Bob Enos Memorial Scholarship Fund, in care of TD Banknorth, 127 South St., Wrentham, MA 02093.

rmassimo@projo.com