BLUES legend Peter Green is to play The Duchess in York on July 31.

“It's a once-in-a-lifetime intimate show in York for which there are only 400 tickets,” says Tim Hornsby, who has booked the show by Peter Green & Friends.

“Forming Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac in ‘67, here was a guitar genius at the peak of his abilities giving the band their first UK number one with Albatross, followed by other stand-out tracks such as Need Your Love So Bad.

“In his spare time, he gifted Black Magic Woman to Carlos Santana, and after leaving Mac in ‘70, but not before writing the haunting Green Manalishi, Peter descended in to a well-documented personal hell, returning on and off since the late ‘90s.

“And so to Peter Green & Friends; not a Fleetwood Mac tribute band, though not without lassic Fleetwood material, but more a personal expression of one legendary musician’s travels through blues, rhythm & blues and soul in an exciting, unpredictable mix.”

Band leader Mike Dodd has brought together a cracking group of musicians to play with Green: keyboard player Geraint Watkins, from Van Morrison, Nick Lowe and Bill Wyman's bands; stand-up bass player Matt Radford, from Lowe and Peter Molinari's line-ups; Andrew Flude on drums; and Dodd himself on rhythm guitar.

York band Mostly Autumn will be the support act, adding even more urgency to the advice to book early on 0844 477 1000.

Meanwhile, Pocklington Arts Centre has pulled off a coup in signing up Mojo award winners The Low Anthem for a late-summer gig.

Confirmation of their Pocklington appearance on August 26 could not be better timed: the Rhode Island four-piece have just beaten off competition from the hotly tipped Florence + The Machine and Mumford & Sons to win Best Breakthrough Act in Mojo magazine’s 2010 parade of gongs.

Arts centre manager Janet Farmer first encountered the band this spring at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas. “I saw some fantastic acts, including Jakob Dylan, Lissie, Harper Simon and Diane Birch, but I was most impressed by The Low Anthem,” she says.

“Their award success only goes to show that 2010 will see the band break through to the mainstream and enjoy huge commercial success, and the booking is further recognition of the national reputation that Pocklington Arts Centre has established over the past decade.”

Hailing from Providence, Rhode Island, The Low Anthem have created a distinctively sparse blend of Americana that embraces elements of gospel, folk, and blues. On their breakthrough album Oh My God, Charlie Drawin, they employ pump organs, the zither and the saw to add elegant atmospherics to strong traditional song-writing.

“The Low Anthem are a classic American band in the making, whose last album fired up the Mojo readers’ imagination with its mix of Dylan-meets-Waits Americana,” says Mojo editor-in-chief Phil Alexander.

Tickets for the 8pm show are on sale on 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.

Charles Hutchinson