POPPLETON Live will return in late April and early May and this time the village arts and music festival will be divided into two elongated weekends.

"The first weekend will be smaller shows, similar to the Poppleton Live events we hold through the year," says organiser John Watterson. "The second weekend will be the larger shows in the Poppleton Centre that you've come to know and love."

The festival will open on April 29 with a night of Americana music featuring Mean Mary and support act Zak Ford in All Saints Hall on The Green at 7.30pm. American folk-rock, bluegrass and blues musician Mean Mary combines lightning-fast playing on banjo, guitar and fiddle with haunting vocals in intricate story songs that draw on her life experiences. "Anything from ghost pirates to demon guitars could romp through a Mean Mary show," says John.

York Press:

Mean Mary: lightning-fast banjo player

Mean Mary – her real name is Mary James – is a Florida native, now based in Nashville, who could read music before she could read words and co-wrote songs at the age of five. By the time she was seven, she was proficient on the guitar, banjo and violin and entertained audiences across the United States with her vocal and instrumental skills.

Her life has been one long road show and she now plays 11 instruments, is an award-winning book author and star of Nashville television show Never-Ending Street.

"I started playing really young and my mom was a big help with that," she says. "It was great having that kind of support. Besides co-writing songs with me, she sometimes travels with me and does videography for my performances and my cable access show. I've even put my husband to work as a photographer. As an independent musician, you need all the help you can get, and I have lots of it. It's a blessing."

Support act Zak Ford, a York singer-songwriter specialising in soul-infused melodic folk, will play songs from his debut album, Young, Eager And Starry Eyed.

Poppleton Methodist Church will join in the festival spirit once more by staging a Concert for York Charities on April 30, with all proceeds going to the Two Ridings Community Foundation (the fund managers for the York Flood Appeal) and York Against Cancer.

The event has two parts and you can come to either one or both. The first will be full afternoon tea at Tea on The Green (£8); the second part, a folk and blues concert by The Revelator Band (£6), with a combined ticket costing £12.

York Press:

The Revelator Band: pantomime-pirate blues rock

The Revelator Band evoke the atmosphere of dark Victoriana, press-gangs and smoke-obscured opium dens, driven by their pantomime-pirate blues rock, which recalls Tom Waits and Captain Beefheart as larger-than-life frontman Barnaby Neale capers, stomps and whirls his way around the stage. Their black attire and hats give them a potentially sinister aspect but this is negated by their affability and self-deprecating humour.

Tickets for these two events – companion pieces to the festival rather than promotions by Poppleton Live – are available from Tea on The Green, Upper Poppleton, or from organisers John and Sheila Middleton on 01904 795826 or via email to john.middleton50@ntlworld.com On Monday, May 2, the festival focus will switch from music to poetry for folk poet Les Barker's 7.30pm gig at All Saints Hall. Best known for such recurring characters and themes as Jason and The Arguments, Cosmo The Fairly Accurate Knife Thrower, Guide Cats For The Blind, Captain Indecisive, The Far Off Land Of Dyslexia and Spot Of The Antarctic, Barker has written 77 books and released 20 albums of monologues and humorous or sometimes serious songs.

York Press:

Lindisfarne's Ray Laidlaw and Billy Mitchell

On the second weekend, the Lindisfarne Story Band and Madison's Thread will play the Poppleton Centre on Friday, May 6 at 7.30pm. Lindisfarne founder member Ray Laidlaw and former lead singer Billy Mitchell will be joined by Tom Mitchell, Michael Bailey, Rachael Bailey and Mark Anderson to perform the North Easterners' landmark 1971 album Fog On The Tyne and other Lindisfarne favourites.

Fellow North Easterners Maddison's Thread will open the concert. "When we heard Lee Maddison's distinctive voice, we knew we had to bring him to Poppleton," says John Watterson. "He will be joined by his band, which features internationally acclaimed fiddler Stewart Hardy, and together they create an earthy, acoustic soundscape that perfectly complements the realism of Lee’s conscientiously crafted songs."

Incidentally, Maddison's song The Mountain is to feature in Terry Abraham's film Life Of A Mountain: Blencathra, which will be premiered in Penrith the weekend after Poppleton Live Festival ends.

For the third successive year, Poppleton Live will present a Saturday Spectacular all-day event on May 7 at the Poppleton Centre, divided into two sessions, the first from 11.30am to 4.30pm; the second from 7.30pm to 10.45pm.

The Grand Old Uke Of York, who opened last year's festival, will return to kick off the afternoon, when Leeds Latin American band Mestisa, York's "vegetable string band" King Courgette and Manchester's The Mather Robinson Band will play too, topped off by York's folk band Blackbeard's Tea Party.

After the teatime break, the music-making will resume with guitarist and comedic songwriter Richard Digance. Headliners The Animals and Friends will round off the day with We Gotta Get Out of This Place, Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood and House Of The Rising Sun, performed by John Steel, Mickey Gallagher Danny Handley and Scott Whitley.

The Lord Mayor of York, Councillor Sonia Crisp, will open the Poppleton Proms, a York variation on the Last Night of the Proms with the Shepherd Group Brass Band and York Philharmonic Male Voice Choir, on the festival's closing night at 7pm at the Poppleton Centre.

Tickets for Poppleton Live Festival can be booked online at poppletonlive.co.uk, from John Watterson on 01904 785366 or via email to tickets@poppletonlive.co.uk