THE legendary ex-Fleetwood Mac guitarist Peter Green will headline the North-East's biggest free blues festival next month.

The acclaimed musician will take to the stage at the climax of the tenth Stanley Blues Festival, in County Durham, on Saturday, August 3.

Green achieved fame in the chart-topping band's early days in the 1960s, playing on classics including Black Magic Woman, Man of the World and Albatross.

He formed Splinter Group in 1995 after a decade out of music and has since become the first Briton to receive the WC Handy Award from the American Blues Foundation.

The group's fourth album, Time Traders, has been acclaimed on both sides of the Atlantic and he has recently completed tours of the US, Canada, Japan and Australia.

The festival, funded by Derwentside district and Durham county councils, has grown since 1993, when it featured only local bands, and now attracts up to 10,000 people. In recent years, leading performers such as former Rolling Stone Mick Taylor and The Blues Band have played there.

John Kearney, organiser Northern Recording, based in Consett, said: "We have been inundated with phone calls since people heard that Peter Green was on. We have had people on from as far as Dorset."

In the festival line-up is veteran Tyneside bluesman Ray Stubbs, once in the same band as the late actor Sammy Johnson.

Also on the bill are blues rock act Slack Alice, Connie Lush and Blues Shouter - hailed by one reviewer as a Liverpool Janis Joplin - and black Texan singer-songwriter and guitarist Bill Thomas.

A local act will open the festival at midday.

Former radio phone-in host Mike "The Mouth'' Elliot will compere the event.

The festival is held on the King's Head Field from noon to 6pm and admission is free. For further details, call Northern Recording on (01207) 507310 or visit the website www.stanleyblues.co.uk