A music festival that was in doubt is to go ahead and has announced this year's line-up.

The 12th Stanley Blues Festival will be held in the former County Durham mining town on Saturday, August 7, from noon to 6.30pm, on the King's Head Field.

The free event will feature six acts, including Stan Webb's Chicken Shack, who played at the festival in 1994 and were part of the British blues boom of the 1960s and 1970s .

Earlier this year it looked as if the festival, organised by Consett-based Northern Recording, could be in jeopardy because its main funding, from Derwentside Council, was in doubt as a result of spending cuts but the authority is continuing to underwrite it.

Sherman Robertson, a master of zydeco, hard-swinging Texas electric blues and the lazy swamp sound of his native Louisiana, is also one of the top acts on the bill.

He has worked with many of the great bluesmen and played guitar on Paul Simon's Graceland album.

The festival will also feature Nashville soul man Charles Walker with Mo'Indigo and the Horn Section, Britain's hardest working blues/rock band The Hamsters, the Chicago blues of recently re-formed North-East band The Blues Burglars and Sunderland's George Shovlin Band.

The show will, as usual, be compered by comedian and former Century Radio phone-in host Mike "The Mouth" Elliot.

Paul Green, of Northern Recording, said: "The festival has become a date that the biggest names in Britain and the States want to play, which is why we are able to attract acts of the pedigree of Sherman Robertson.

"Personally, I am really looking forward to seeing Stan Webb - it isn't very often that we invite a band to play a second time at the festival, but Stan was awesome last time around and we are very pleased to get him back.

"The other highlight for me is The Blues Burglars. They were probably the biggest blues band in the North-East during the 1980s and have just got back together earlier this year.

"I know they'll be planning something a bit special for Stanley."

Published: 22/06/2004