[The following is from the official press release.]
Last year, the Hudson Valley’s Oldtone Music Festival was at risk of disappearing forever, just like the roots traditions it is dedicated to preserving.
Today, as part of its revival, Oldtone has announced acclaimed actor — and second-generation clogger — Walton Goggins (Justified, Fallout, The Righteous Gemstones) as an executive producer for this year’s roots music and arts festival. Or as he puts it, “I am so grateful for the opportunity to provide two of many hands helping the Oldtone Festival return with a new chapter, back on Cool Whisper Farm in the middle of paradise.”
After moving to the area and attending the festival, Walton fell in love with Oldtone, embracing the spirit of community that makes it a living and breathing open-air museum for folk traditions that are at risk of being lost to time like contra dancing, banjo-making, and passing centuries-old songs from person to person.
Walton says that at Oldtone, “we can just soak up a wide variety of old time music in at least three languages on the ethereal hilltop meadow with our loved ones. Or we can shake hands and move our feet (I’m a clogger) with new friends and learn different styles of folk dancing from a dozen teachers, or have a musician who was just on stage teach us how to play a tune, or hear how African and French and English and Spanish songs reach out through history and tell us directly about the past.”
This is vanishingly rare for roots music festivals. But Oldtone almost didn’t make it through the pandemic, announcing its closing in 2023. Walton writes, “Like so many people who have found a strong community though Oldtone, I mourned its passing, and rejoice even more at its rebirth. I had been looking for a meaningful way to contribute to the Hudson Valley community that has become so important to me and my family. OLDTONE is it!”
After a miraculous return as a nonprofit driven by intense local and artist community support, the Oldtone Music Festival is a one-of-a-kind 4 day hoot taking place from September 5-8 in Hillsdale, NY at Cool Whisper Farm. This year, expanding its scope to be a North American folk festival, and honoring the changing demographics of the Hudson Valley, Oldtone has added Latin-American roots music in a big way out of the gate, with Grammy-winners Los Texmaniacs joining a lineup full of some of the the best the roots world has to offer like The Deslondes, JP Harris, Foghorn Stringband, Sweet Megg, Down Hill Strugglers, the mythic Kiki Cavazos and many more. Oldtone also unveiled its lineup schedule; tickets and more information for the 8th edition of this treasured festival are currently on sale now at Oldtone.org.
Since 2015, the festival has brought the best of old time, bluegrass, hot jazz, Cajun dance music, Western swing and other traditional styles to North Hillsdale for multi-day music festivals and camping on a working family farm. Standing out amongst a sea of corporatized summer festivals, Oldtone is, by design, an intimate, rural, artist-driven festival, without the trappings of larger megafests. Artist interaction remains a high priority, with hands-on workshops, a dance tent, band and instrument contests, and even a side-stage in order to pull camper-pickers up for a few numbers, which creates a festival experience unlike any other.
Oldtone is now co-produced by Jim Wright and Trevor Roush, with Executive Producer Walton Goggins. It is the hope that the festival will have a better chance to be sustainable and continue to promote the same great roots music.
Featured Photo Credit: Shayan Asgharnia
