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Festival Information
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Tall Ships on the Hudson River, sloop Clearwater and schooner Pioneer. |
Contemporary blues star Susan Tedeschi, renowned Sixties era troubadour
Arlo Guthrie and “newgrass” sensations Old Crow Medicine Show are among
the headliners announced today as part of the initial lineup for
Clearwater’s 2009 Great Hudson River Revival, which will take place on
Saturday and Sunday, June 20 and 21 at Croton Point Park in Croton-on
Hudson, NY.
Tickets for the Revival, which is a fundraiser for Hudson Sloop
Clearwater and also the country’s oldest music and environmental
festival, are
now on sale.
The Clearwater Festival will be celebrating a number of auspicious
occasions this year, including the 40th anniversary of the launch of the
sloop Clearwater, the 90th birthday of the legendary folksinger, and
Clearwater founder, Pete Seeger and the 400th anniversary of Henry
Hudson’s voyage up the river on the Half Moon. Fittingly, new festival
director Jon Dindas invited back a number of longtime folk-centric
Clearwater favorites, like Guthrie, Richie Havens, Jay Ungar and Molly
Mason, Rik Palieri, Linda Richards and Rick Nestler, to share the
festival stages along with a bevy of top acts and musical artists who
will be making their first appearance at the festival.
“Honoring tradition while looking toward the future has always been a
major part of the Great Hudson River Revival, and it was my intention to
create a lineup this year that would appeal to all kinds of people
interested in great music and environmental awareness,” said Dindas.
Among the festival first-timers this year are veteran vocal group The
Persuasions, indie pop-rock bands Dr. Dog and Elvis Perkins in Dearland,
New Pornographers frontman A.C. Newman, acclaimed singer-songwriters
Alejandro Escovedo and Allison Moorer and bluegrass/jamband Cornmeal.
Pete Seeger will be performing at various junctures during the two-day
festival, as usual, and his grandson (and frequent collaborator) Tao
Rodriguez-Seeger will also be playing a set with his new band. Irish
dance band MacTall Mór, the Sleepy Hollow String Band, Mike & Ruthy
Merenda, the Dirty Stay Out Skillers, Dan Einbender, Gillen & Turk, Hope
Machine, Evy Mayer and Melissa Otqusit and Sarah Underhill round out the
initial lineup. More performers will be announced in the coming weeks.
The Clearwater Festival will also feature a number of superb
storytellers and family-oriented entertainers, as well juried crafts, a
Green Living Expo, a working riverfront, environmental education sites
and the Circle of Song, where audience participation is the focus. The
entire festival is wheelchair accessible and staffed with American Sign
Language interpreters.
Inspired by Pete Seeger’s desire to clean up the river over forty years
ago, the Great Hudson River Revival initially helped raise the funds to
build the sloop Clearwater, which has since become a world-renowned
floating classroom and a symbol of effective grassroots action. Today,
Hudson River Sloop Clearwater is a non-profit organization that sails at
the forefront of the nation’s environmental challenges. The revenue
raised by the Revival goes to support Clearwater’s numerous educational
programs and its work toward environmental and social justice—as well as
keeping the Clearwater afloat.
Pete Seeger at the Clearwater Festival |
Mission of the Festival
The Great Hudson River Revival is produced by the nonprofit,
member-supported, environmental organization Hudson River Sloop
Clearwater, Inc. to raise funds and awareness aimed at protecting the
river and the earth. All proceeds go directly to support Clearwater’s
environmental research, education and advocacy efforts to help preserve
and protect the Hudson River and its tributaries, as well as communities
in the river valley.
The Festival makes possible innovative educational initiatives, which
have helped more than 430,000 young people and over 250,000 adults
experience the wonders of the Hudson River from aboard the sloop
Clearwater. The organization itself has gained worldwide recognition for
its leadership in helping to pass landmark environmental laws, both
state and federal, including the Clean Water Act. Recently, Clearwater
played a key role in the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPAs)
decision to compel one of the Hudson River’s biggest polluters to begin
removing toxic PCBs from the water and restoring one of the most
polluted portions of the river. In 2002, Pete Seeger, the founder of
Clearwater, was named a “Clean Water Hero” for his prominent efforts in
the passage of the Clean Water Act. His tireless devotion to working
through Clearwater and promoting its message to effectively use the law
in prosecuting polluters of America’s waterways has made the Clean Water
Act perhaps the most successful environmental law in the country.
Today, seeing the success of the Clearwater organization, one cannot
imagine these achievements being possible without the Clearwater
Festival. The Great Hudson River Revival has helped raise funds and
served as a beacon toward raising awareness in support of America’s
First River. And it all started more than 35 years ago, when it was but
the dream of a banjo-picking folksinger.
History of the Festival
Back in the mid-sixties, after centuries of accumulated sewage pollution
and industrial dumping of toxic chemicals, the Hudson River, like many
of America’s most important estuaries, was declared “dead”. The river’s
fragile ecological system was devastated. Not a single fish was found in
many areas, and the level of commercial fishing hadĄdropped so
dramatically as to be regarded as nonexistent. Recognizing this
incredible social and environmental tragedy, Pete Seeger, a popular
musician and respected activist, decided “to build a boat to save the
river”. Holding small, fundraising river concerts throughout the Hudson
River Valley, he literally passed his banjo among the crowd, collecting
contributions to build the elegant tall ship that would become a symbol
of environmental advocacy, the flagship of the American Environmental
Movement, the sloop Clearwater.
This nomadic folk festival picnic continued to travel through out the
Hudson River Valley, then in 1978 the gathering set down roots at a
historic river park, Croton Point, on the Hudson River and was coined
The Great Hudson River Revival. However, ten years later, due to
pollution problems with the landfill at the park, the festival was
forced to move from the river. This move resulted in a decade of exile
inland at a suburban college campus. In 1998, however, the Clearwater
board of directors pushed to move the festival on or near the Hudson
River, and a year later the Clearwater Festival returned to its
spiritual home, the shores of the Hudson River at Croton Point Park.
Since the 1960s, the Clearwater Festival has grown into the country’s
largest annual environmental celebration, its music, dance and
storytelling, education and activism attracting thousands of people
of all ages to the shores of the Hudson River.
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