$10 730 is the additional amount needed by Crickets guitarist Petar Guizelev in order to undergo an operation for the removal of a benign tumor in his brain.

The talented guitar hero originally needed around $100 000 and has managed to somehow scrape together almost all of it bar the 10k still needed.

His colleague in the Crickets, Kiril Marichkov said: "Pete actually had the full sum, but then he received an additional bill. It was only then that he told us about his illness."

Guizelev did not want to go public about it, but was persuaded to do so by relatives. He will travel to Los Angeles at the end of May, where he hopes all will go well and he will return a healthy man.

"There is a 10% chance it may not as planned, but I'm not worried. I'm 65 years old, have gone a long way and have met many wonderful people," says the guitarist philosophically.