Jones graces Grassroots

Grace Jones joins the line-up of classic acts at this year's Grassroots Festival. Photo / Supplied

Become a slave to the rhythm (and blues) this Easter when Grace Jones plays the Grassroots Festival in Auckland.

Jones, the eccentric new wave and disco soul songstress from Jamaica, whose big 80s hits included Pull Up to the Bumper, My Jamaican Guy, and Slave to the Rhythm, is the latest big-name act to be announced for the festival being labelled the New Zealand Blues and Roots All Music Festival.

Blues guitar great BB King will headline the event, which also includes Ben Harper and the Relentless 7 and Elvis Costello and the Imposters, to be held on April 23 and 24 at Puhinui Reserve in Manukau.

Jones' heyday was the 80s, but 2008 comeback album, Hurricane - her first in 20 years - was a solid return to form with head-nodding dub and reggae alongside dark disco and soul grooves.

Also added to the bill along with Jones is swamp rock exponent Tony Joe White from Louisiana, British singer and composer Imogen Heap, Gypsy music man Lulo Reinhardt from Germany, rambling and rootsy Americana band The Felice Brothers, and nomadic US musician Eugene Hideaway.

The long list of newly announced New Zealand performers is led by bluesman Hammond Gamble along with Flip Grater, Shona Laing, Doug Jerebine and Billy TK, Heart Attack Alley, Julia Deans, Darcy Perry, Caitlin Smith, Riverhead Slide, The Warratahs, the Bads, and The Thomas Oliver Band.

And the other acts already announced are Mexican guitar duo Rodrigo Y Gabriela, acoustic bluesman Eric Bibb, and American blues folk singer-songwriter Ruthie Foster, with locals Paul Ubana Jones, Don McGlashan, Cairo Knife Fight, Ticket and Sola Rosa.