THE Great British Rhythm and Blues Festival has been voted the best in Europe for the second year running.

Colne’s annual music event has been named the Best Blues Festival in the European Blues Awards 2014.

The awards were started in 1981 by Dietrich Muller and Tall Boy Wilder. Now, they are not only the longest established, but probably the biggest genre accolade outside the USA.

Voting is open to anyone, but it is mainly the blues loving public that have their say.

And they have given yet another massive thumbs-up to the event which has now been on the calendar for a quarter of a century and attracts more and more fans each year.

The object is to protect the future of this musical genre by raising awareness at all levels and that has certainly been accomplished when it comes to raising the profile of the Colne event.

Voting this year was absolutely phenomenal, with tens of thousands of blues fans choosing their favourites, making this by far the biggest response.

There were 10 categories, including Best Band, Best Guitarist, Best Vocalist, Best Radio Show and Best Performance.

The Great British Rhythm and Blues Festival was up against Le Buis Blues Festival in France and Notodden Blues Festival in Norway.

First arranged in 1988, Notodden Blues Festival in Telemark now attracts well over 20,000 visitors every year and is by far the biggest in Scandinavia.

Many big blues names have played there in the past two decades, among them Jeff Healey, Solomon Bruke, Joe Bonamassa, Beth Hart, Gary Moore, Jack Bruce, Robin Trower, Ray Davies, Buddy Guy and John Mayall.

ZZ Top headlined in 2012 and workshops and youth seminars also form part of the programme.

And the success of Notodden puts Colne’s achievement firmly in context.

This year, Colne’s 25th anniversary musical extravaganza, as usual, provided a star-studded line-up including Animals’ founder and lead singer Eric Burdon, Eric Sardinas, Mike Sanchez, Dr Feelgood and Andy Fairweather Low, some of whom had never played before and some who had performed at the very first Festival in 1990.

Festival organiser, Alison Goode, said: “We are delighted and honoured to have won this award again, which officially recognises the festival as the best in Europe. We would like to thank the thousands of blues fans who travel to Colne.”