WHAT is billed as “the country’s poshest music festival” has unveiled its line-up.

X Factor stars Sam Bailey and Luke Friend, pianist Jools Holland, 60s icon Georgie Fame, 70s stars 10cc, 80s pop act Simple Minds and 90s Girl Power icon ‘Sporty Spice’ Mel C are among the big names gracing this year’s Cornbury Music Festival.

They will be joined at Great Tew Park, near Chipping Norton, over the weekend of July 4-6 by singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega, pop diva Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Soft Cell’s Marc Almond.

Also playing are pop acts The Feeling and Scouting for Girls, 19-year-old singing sensation Nina Nesbitt, Grammy Award-winning country singer Kacey Musgraves and songwriter Jon Allen.

International stars include Japanese composer Tomoyasu Hotei, who wrote the theme tune for the Quentin Tarantino film Kill Bill, Illinois country-rocker Lissie, New Jersey’s Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes, featuring rhythm and blues singer Gary US Bonds, Atlanta hip-hop collective Arrested Development, and the Caribbean-flavoured Kid Creole & The Coconuts.

Celtic fusion band Peatbog Faeries will close the festival.

Sunday’s big name headliner has yet to be revealed.

Festival director Hugh Phillimore said: ““Once again I think we’ve managed to get a brilliant cross-section of great music – which is of course what we’re all about.

“We have lots of old favourites, all great performers, along with some very diverse new talent from a double Grammy Award winning new country star to an X Factor winner with a brilliant story.

“With old and new Top 10 artists along with international faces and British national treasures to boot, it’s going to be a lot of fun."

He added: We are the poshest festival, but only in the old-fashioned sense.

“I’m proud that it is family-friendly and safe. It will never be ‘cool’, but that’s fine. If you’ve been to Glastonbury, you’ll feel okay, and if you’ve never been to a music festival, you won’t be scared.

  • Don't You (Forget About Me) by Simple Minds

“I like the fact that the Scouts and Guides pick up the litter, that wallets get handed in with all the money still in them, and that we have only had two arrests in 10 years. I’m a family man and this is a family festival.”

Witney Gazette:

  • Suzanne Vega

Since being launched 11 years ago, Cornbury has established itself as Oxfordshire’s biggest music festival, last year attracting 15,000 people.

The event’s stately home setting, family-friendly line-up, Pimms bars and exclusive VIP area have earned it the nickname Poshstock.

  • Georgie Fame on Later With Jools Holland

Its reputation as an upper crust festival is enhanced by its A-list celebrity clientele, with Prime Minister David Cameron and his family regularly rubbing shoulders with other members of the Cotswold set, such as Jeremy Clarkson, former The Sun and News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks, Blur bassist Alex James and others.