Clearwater Festival
Encyclopedia
Hudson River Sloop Clearwater
The Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc. is an organization based in Beacon, New York that seeks to protect the Hudson River and surrounding wetlands and waterways through advocacy and public education...
, Inc., a nonprofit 501(c)(3) environmental
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
organization.
The Festival, a celebration for the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
, features singer-songwriters, performers and musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
s offering fun with a purpose — a diverse mix of contemporary, traditional and American Roots music, dance
Dance
Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....
, family-oriented entertainment and storytelling
Storytelling
Storytelling is the conveying of events in words, images and sounds, often by improvisation or embellishment. Stories or narratives have been shared in every culture as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation and in order to instill moral values...
. In addition to music and dance, a juried craft show, Green Living Expo, working riverfront, environmental education sites, and a Circle of Song featuring audience participation fill out the weekend's schedule.
All behind-the-scenes elements, such as the seven sustainable bio-diesel-powered stages, recycling of food waste, volunteer meal preparation, and sponsor selection, are done with goals of sustainability
Sustainability
Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...
and social responsibility in mind. Use of carpooling, bicycling, and public transportation are encouraged. The entire festival is wheelchair-accessible and staffed with American Sign Language
American Sign Language
American Sign Language, or ASL, for a time also called Ameslan, is the dominant sign language of Deaf Americans, including deaf communities in the United States, in the English-speaking parts of Canada, and in some regions of Mexico...
interpreters. Clearwater was one of the first festivals to provide ASL interpreters, with 16 interpreters working at the 2011 event. The festival also includes services for the disabled, including 20 on-site wheelchairs and seating in front of every stage.
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
who regularly performs at it. Among those who have performed over the years are Janis Ian
Janis Ian
Janis Ian is an American songwriter, singer, musician, columnist, and science fiction author. Ian first entered the folk music scene while still a teenager in the mid-sixties; most active musically in that decade and the 1970s, she has continued recording into the 21st century...
, Arlo Guthrie
Arlo Guthrie
Arlo Davy Guthrie is an American folk singer. Like his father, Woody Guthrie, Arlo often sings songs of protest against social injustice...
, Tom Paxton
Tom Paxton
Thomas Richard Paxton is an American folk singer and singer-songwriter who has been writing, performing and recording music for over forty years...
, Michelle Shocked
Michelle Shocked
Michelle Shocked is the stage name of Michelle Karen Johnston, an American singer-songwriter.-History:Shocked received her first international exposure in Europe, particularly Britain, with her debut album The Texas Campfire Tapes .Her first U.S...
, Tish Hinojosa
Tish Hinojosa
Leticia Hinojosa is a folksinger recording in both Spanish and English. Hinojosa was the youngest of 13 children. Hinojosa's parents were Mexican immigrants...
, Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
, Paul Winter
Paul Winter
Paul Winter is an American saxophonist , and is a six-time Grammy Award nominee.- Biography :Paul Winter attended Altoona Area High School and graduated in 1957...
, Odetta
Odetta
Odetta Holmes, known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter, and a human rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire consisted largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals...
, Buffy Sainte-Marie
Buffy Sainte-Marie
Buffy Sainte-Marie, OC is a Canadian Cree singer-songwriter, musician, composer, visual artist, educator, pacifist, and social activist. Throughout her career in all of these areas, her work has focused on issues of Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Her singing and writing repertoire includes...
, Dar Williams
Dar Williams
Dar Williams is an American singer-songwriter specializing in pop folk.She is a frequent performer at folk festivals and has toured with such artists as Mary Chapin Carpenter, Patty Griffin, Ani DiFranco, The Nields, Shawn Colvin, Girlyman, Joan Baez, and Catie Curtis.-Biography:Williams was born...
, The Skatalites
The Skatalites
The Skatalites are a ska band from Jamaica. They played initially between 1963 and 1965, and recorded many of their best known songs in the period, including "Guns of Navarone". They also played on records by Prince Buster and backed many other Jamaican artists who recorded during that period...
, Ani DiFranco
Ani DiFranco
Ani DiFranco is an American Grammy Award-winning singer, guitarist, poet, and songwriter. She has released more than 20 albums, and is widely considered a feminist icon.-Biography:...
, Taj Mahal
Taj Mahal (musician)
Henry Saint Clair Fredericks , who uses the stage name Taj Mahal, is an American Grammy Award winning blues musician. He incorporates elements of world music into his music...
, Toshi Reagon
Toshi Reagon
Toshi Reagon is an American folk/blues musician. She is the daughter of Freedom Singers co-founders Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, founder of Sweet Honey in the Rock, with whom she has sometimes collaborated on musical projects and of Cordell Hull Reagon, a leader of the civil rights movement in...
, Christine Lavin
Christine Lavin
Christine Lavin is a New York City-based singer-songwriter and promoter of contemporary folk music. She has recorded numerous solo albums, and has also recorded with other female folk artists under the name Four Bitchin' Babes...
, Steve Earle
Steve Earle
Stephen Fain "Steve" Earle is an American singer-songwriter known for his rock and Texas Country as well as his political views. He is also a producer, author, a political activist, and an actor, and has written and directed a play....
, Shawn Colvin
Shawn Colvin
Shawn Colvin is an American singer-songwriter and musician.-Childhood and early career:Colvin was born in Vermillion, South Dakota. Her formative years were spent in the town of Carbondale, Illinois, where she attended Southern Illinois University Carbondale. She learned to play guitar at the age...
, Joan Osborne
Joan Osborne
Joan Elizabeth Osborne is an American singer-songwriter. She is best known for her song "One of Us". She has toured with Motown sidemen the Funk Brothers and was featured in the documentary film about them, Standing in the Shadows of Motown.-Biography:Originally from Anchorage, Kentucky, a suburb...
, Railroad Earth
Railroad Earth
Railroad Earth is a roots and Americana-based newgrass band from Stillwater, New Jersey. Their name was borrowed from the Jack Kerouac short story "October in the Railroad Earth," to which the band also has a song by the same name...
, Donna the Buffalo
Donna the Buffalo
Donna the Buffalo is a band from Trumansburg, New York. They play both originals and covers....
, Buckwheat Zydeco
Buckwheat Zydeco
Buckwheat Zydeco is the stage name of Stanley Dural, Jr. , an American accordionist and zydeco musician. He is one of the few zydeco artists to achieve mainstream success...
, Jonatha Brooke
Jonatha Brooke
Jonatha Brooke is an American folk rock singer-songwriter and guitarist from Illinois.Her music merges elements of folk, rock and pop, often with poignant lyrics and complex harmonies...
, Drive-By Truckers
Drive-By Truckers
Drive-By Truckers are an alternative country/Southern rock band based in Athens, Georgia, though three out of six members are originally from The Shoals region of Northern Alabama, and the band strongly identifies with Alabama. Their music uses three guitars as well as bass, drums, and now...
, Indigo Girls
Indigo Girls
The Indigo Girls are an American folk rock music duo, consisting of Amy Ray and Emily Saliers. They met in elementary school and began performing together as high school students in Decatur, Georgia, part of the Atlanta metropolitan area...
, Josh Ritter
Josh Ritter
Josh Ritter is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist and author who performs and records with The Royal City Band. Ritter is known for his distinctive Americana style and narrative lyrics. In 2006 he was named one of the "100 Greatest Living Songwriters" by Paste magazine.- Early life :Josh...
, Suzanne Vega
Suzanne Vega
Suzanne Nadine Vega is an American songwriter and singer known for her eclectic folk-inspired music.Two of Vega's songs reached the top 10 of various international chart listings: "Luka" and "Tom's Diner"...
, Jorma Kaukonen
Jorma Kaukonen
Jorma Ludwik Kaukonen Jr. is an American blues, folk, and rock guitarist, best known for his work with Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna.-Biography:...
, Billy Bragg
Billy Bragg
Stephen William Bragg , better known as Billy Bragg, is an English alternative rock musician and left-wing activist. His music blends elements of folk music, punk rock and protest songs, and his lyrics mostly deal with political or romantic themes...
, Dar Williams
Dar Williams
Dar Williams is an American singer-songwriter specializing in pop folk.She is a frequent performer at folk festivals and has toured with such artists as Mary Chapin Carpenter, Patty Griffin, Ani DiFranco, The Nields, Shawn Colvin, Girlyman, Joan Baez, and Catie Curtis.-Biography:Williams was born...
, David Bromberg
David Bromberg
David Bromberg is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter. Bromberg has an eclectic style, playing bluegrass, blues, folk, jazz, country and western, and rock and roll equally well. He is known for his quirky, humorous lyrics, and the ability to play rhythm and lead guitar at the...
, Peter Yarrow
Peter Yarrow
Peter Yarrow is an American singer who found fame with the 1960s folk music trio Peter, Paul and Mary. Yarrow co-wrote one of the group's most famous songs, "Puff, the Magic Dragon"...
, The Low Anthem
The Low Anthem
The Low Anthem is an American indie folk band from Providence, Rhode Island, formed in 2006. The band consists of multi-instrumentalists Ben Knox Miller, Jeff Prystowsky and Jocie Adams, and rose to prominence with the re-release of its third studio album, Oh My God, Charlie Darwin, in 2009.In...
, The Felice Brothers
The Felice Brothers
The Felice Brothers are a folk rock/country rock band from Upstate New York founded in 2006.-History:The Felice Brothers got their start as a band playing in the New York City subway,. The sons of a carpenter, they would play together on Sundays at their father's afternoon barbecues...
, Toubab Krewe
Toubab Krewe
Toubab Krewe is an American instrumental band which fuses the music of Mali with American musical styles . The group's instrumentation includes kora , kamelengoni , soku , two electric guitars, electric bass guitar, drum set, and African percussion...
, and Justin Townes Earle
Justin Townes Earle
Justin Townes Earle , son of Steve Earle, stepson of Allison Moorer, and named for songwriter Townes Van Zandt is an AMA winning, Americana musician based in Nashville, Tennessee. Earle is signed to Bloodshot Records and has four released albums from 2007–2010...
.
In 2009, the Festival celebrated several auspicious occasions, including the 40th anniversary of the launch of the sloop Clearwater, the 90th birthday of Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
and the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson
Henry Hudson
Henry Hudson was an English sea explorer and navigator in the early 17th century. Hudson made two attempts on behalf of English merchants to find a prospective Northeast Passage to Cathay via a route above the Arctic Circle...
’s voyage up the river on the Half Moon
Halve Maen
The Halve Maen was a Dutch East India Company vlieboot which sailed into what is now New York harbor in September 1609. It was commissioned by the Dutch Republic to covertly find an eastern passage to China...
. Fittingly, festival performers included some longtime folk-centric Clearwater traditions as well as many new artists who made their first appearance at the festival. First-timers in 2009 included veteran vocal group The Persuasions
The Persuasions
The Persuasions are an a cappella group that began singing together in Brooklyn, New York in the mid 1960s. They have performed interpretations of both secular and non-secular music, and have covered a wide range of musical genres....
, Grace Potter & The Nocturnals, psychedelic rock band Dr. Dog
Dr. Dog
Dr. Dog is a psychedelic rock band from West Grove, Pennsylvania. Its lineup currently consists of Toby Leaman , Scott McMicken , Frank McElroy , Zach Miller , and Eric Slick . Lead vocal duties are shared between Leaman and McMicken, with all members contributing harmonies...
, Elvis Perkins in Dearland
Elvis Perkins
Elvis Perkins is an American folk-rock recording artist. He released his debut studio album, Ash Wednesday, in 2007...
and A.C. Newman
Carl Newman
Allan Carl Newman is a Canadian musician and songwriter. He was a member of the indie rock bands Superconductor and Zumpano in the 1990s. Following the breakup of those bands, he reemerged as the leader of The New Pornographers in 2000....
, as well as singer-songwriters Alejandro Escovedo
Alejandro Escovedo
Alejandro Escovedo is an American singer-songwriter.-Biography:The son of Mexican immigrants to Texas, Escovedo is from a family that boasts several professional musicians, including brothers Coke Escovedo and Pete Escovedo, and Sheila E...
and Allison Moorer
Allison Moorer
Allison Moorer is an American alternative country singer and the younger sister of Shelby Lynne. She signed to MCA Nashville in 1998 and made her debut on the U.S...
, plus bluegrass/jam band acts Old Crow Medicine Show
Old Crow Medicine Show
Old Crow Medicine Show is an old-time string band based in Nashville, Tennessee. Their music has been called bluegrass, Americana, and alt-country, in addition to old-time. Along with original songs, the band performs many pre-World War II blues and folk songs...
and Cornmeal
Cornmeal (band)
Cornmeal is a roots and bluegrass jamband from Chicago, Illinois. Formed over 10 years ago. Heavily influenced by American roots and folk music....
.
Emphasizing the importance of the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
to the Festival, Hudson River Sloop Clearwater
Hudson River Sloop Clearwater
The Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc. is an organization based in Beacon, New York that seeks to protect the Hudson River and surrounding wetlands and waterways through advocacy and public education...
has added a number of river front activities such as kayaking and rowboating, and rides on the tall ships The Clearwater, The Mystic Whaler
Hudson River Sloop Clearwater
The Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc. is an organization based in Beacon, New York that seeks to protect the Hudson River and surrounding wetlands and waterways through advocacy and public education...
, and The Woody Guthrie.
History of the festival
The Festival has its origins in the Sloop Clearwater itself. To raise money to build the Sloop, Hudson River Sloop ClearwaterHudson River Sloop Clearwater
The Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc. is an organization based in Beacon, New York that seeks to protect the Hudson River and surrounding wetlands and waterways through advocacy and public education...
founders Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
and friends held a series of small fundraising concerts in the Hudson River Valley and at Sandy Hook in New Jersey, and passed a banjo around the crowd to collect donations. By 1978, the concerts had evolved into a land-based Festival at Croton Point
Croton Point
Croton Point is a Westchester County park in the village of Croton-on-Hudson.The park has several public attractions including:*Miniature Aircraft airport*Boat launch*Cabin Rental*Cross country skiing*Fishing*Group picnicking*Hiking/walking*Museum...
Park, which hosted the Festival for a decade, until pollution problems from the park's landfill forced a relocation to a suburban college campus. It was not until 1999 that the Festival was able to move back to the park and the shores of the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
.
Mission of the festival
The Great Hudson River Revival is produced by Hudson River Sloop ClearwaterHudson River Sloop Clearwater
The Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc. is an organization based in Beacon, New York that seeks to protect the Hudson River and surrounding wetlands and waterways through advocacy and public education...
, Inc., a nonprofit, member-supported, environmental organization, to raise funds and consciousness on the plight of the river and the earth, as well as uniting the community around the river. All proceeds go directly to support Clearwater’s environmental research, education, and advocacy to help preserve and protect the river and its tributaries, as well as communities in the river valley.
The Festival makes possible innovative educational initiatives such as Clearwater’s New Hudson River School, which has helped more than 430,000 young people and over 250,000 adults experience the wonders of the River from aboard the Sloop Clearwater.