Last year, the Hudson Valley’s beloved 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 is thrilled to announce 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!”
 
He continues, “The Oldtone festival is made by hand with all of this area’s sense of community, its diversity, and the authenticity of local people’s support for the arts. It’s a place where there is no divide between the people on stage and the people in the audience. It makes everybody feel like they’re at the center of it all.”  
 
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.
 
Walton’s invitation sums up the tone of Oldtone. “This is the year to experience it with me and all the fine folks who poured their hearts into this big comeback. Come on up, and camp, and sing, and dance, and be in community with all of us. Pack JOY.”  Read his full statement about supporting the festival here.
 
Oldtone’s motto reads, “Participation is Preservation” and it aims to preserve roots music and folkways through artist and audience participation and by passing traditions down by hand. 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.
 
Camping Gates will open at 12 pm on Thursday Sept 5th for Full Festival ticket holders that booked to tent camp, and for those with RVs and trailers that are longer than 18 ft. An announcement will be made later this summer on the exact camping admittance date. Please check the Oldtone website for all event updates.
 
Day Lot Gate Times:
Thursday: 4 pm -12 am
Friday: 11 am -12 am
Sat: 9 am -12 am
Sun: 10 am - 4 pm