Steve Earle, Shawn Colvin, Pete Seeger, David Bromberg Quartet, Keller Williams, Joan Osborne and Buckwheat Zydeco to Headline at Historic Gathering
Famed singer-songwriters Steve Earle and Shawn Colvin, contemporary music star Joan Osborne, sizzling accordion player Buckwheat Zydeco, “newgrass” sensations Railroad Earth, plus the David Bromberg Quartet, Keller Williams, the subdudes, Donna the Buffalo and Pete Seeger are among the headliners announced as part of the initial lineup for Clearwater’s Great Hudson River Revival, which will take place on Saturday and Sunday, June 19 and 20 at Croton Point Park in Croton-on-Hudson, NY.
Tickets for the Revival, which is a fundraiser for Hudson River Sloop Clearwater and also the country’s oldest music and environmental festival, are now on sale at http://www.clearwaterfestival.org/.
Earlier this year, Clearwater welcomed new festival director Steve Lurie on board, and he has programmed a remarkable lineup of acts, while longtime festival coordinator and musician Will Solomon has signed on as assistant festival director.
“I’m very honored to be working with Clearwater and all the volunteer coordinators on this year’s Revival,” said Lurie, a successful concert producer who founded a consulting business, Music Without Borders, in 1998. “To be part of Pete Seeger’s important legacy and help raise environmental awareness with inspiring music means a great deal to me.”
Among first-time festival performers this year are acclaimed singer-songwriters Steve Forbert and Dan Bern, Sara Watkins of Nickel Creek, Old 97s frontman Rhett Miller, Celtic fiddle virtuoso Eileen Ivers, indie music stalwarts Ryan Montbleau Band, Felice Brothers and Jonatha Brooke, Angel Band, Milton, Mike Doughty from Soul Coughing and more.
Clearwater founder and folk music icon Pete Seeger will be performing at various times during the two-day festival, as usual, and also appearing will be Revival favorites like Toshi Reagon, the Walkabout Clearwater Chorus, Kim & Reggie Harris, Rick Nestler, Dog on Fleas, Jay Mankita and Paul Richmond. This year, the festival is featuring a World Dance Tent, where you’ll find C. J. Chenier, contra dance group Nightingale, Jay Ungar & Molly Mason, Brother Joscephus and the Love Revival Revolution Orchestra, Folklore Urbano, Hazmat Modine and Slavic Soul Party. More performers will be announced in the coming weeks.
The Clearwater Festival will also feature storytellers and family-oriented entertainers, as well as juried crafts, a Green Living Expo, a small boats exhibit, rides on the sloop Clearwater and schooner Mystic Whaler, hands-on environmental education and the Circle of Song, where audience participation is the focus. The entire festival is wheelchair accessible and most stage programming is 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 sloop Clearwater afloat.
