NEW YORK (AFP).- Gospel legend Aretha Franklin will headline the latest addition to the fast-growing US festival calendar -- a weekend in New York featuring leading winemakers.

City Winery, a mid-sized Manhattan music venue and restaurant, on Thursday announced the September 17-18 festival at Forest Hills Stadium, the Queens venue best known as the site of the US Open tennis championships.

The "City Winery Open" will bring together 75 wineries from around the world as well as food from 40 New York chefs, it said in an announcement.

Franklin, the 74-year-old "Queen of Soul" music, will headline the festival's second day, with folk pop star Sheryl Crow leading the lineup on Saturday.

Other performers over the two days will include Americana songwriter Josh Ritter, retro Los Angeles rockers Dawes and Jakob Dylan's band The Wallflowers.

Festivals have witnessed soaring growth in North America in the past few years and have increasingly become a key revenue source in the music business.

While festivals have traditionally targeted young party-goers -- and beer guzzlers rather than oenophiles -- new events have increasingly branched out to find new audiences.

The inaugural three-day Panorama festival, created by the promoters behind California's famed Coachella, will kick off Friday in New York.

Franklin has scheduled concerts around North America through the end of the year after scrapping a mini-tour of Florida early this year, citing problems with her backup band.



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