Hudson River Music Festival: Charting the Melody to A Modern Movement

“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” – Mark Twain 

Before The First Note  

At 7 am on Father’s Day, Sunday, June 21st—while generally not a morning person—I was already up and buzzing, preparing for what I knew in my gut would be an exciting day, a gal-pal road trip to the Hudson River Music Festival. My friend and I loaded up the car. Lawn blankets, two empty water bottles, chairs, snacks, canned seltzers—the works. Normally, breakfast and coffee would have been the next thing on our minds, but we had something else to discuss. As soon as I opened the front passenger seat door, I was greeted with, “Are you ready to see Jesse?!” 

In the spirit of the youthful excitement felt for truly good lineups, I responded, “Duh!” 

More Than A Viral Sensation

Jesse Welles, the headliner for this year’s Hudson Valley River Music Festival, started going viral back in early 2024. While his debut album Red Trees and White Trashes was released in 2018, it wasn’t until Jesse began uploading simplified videos to his Instagram + TikTok — just him and his unplugged, acoustic guitar in the wilds of Arkansas — that he started gaining larger attention. 

It’s not hard to speculate why Jesse Welles resonates so much with a modern crowd. For me, I first became familiar with Jesse after his song, “War Isn’t Murder,” went viral and landed in my Instagram feed. With an unbelievably catchy melody and hard-hitting opening lyrics, it was hard not to be hooked. After he posted videos of his following songs titled “United Health” and “Join Ice” — released later in 2024 and 2025, respectively — it was also hard not to believe I wasn’t listening to a modern Woody Guthrie. 

“War isn’t murder, 

Good men don’t die, 

Children don’t starve, 

And all women survive, 

War isn’t murder,

That’s what they say,

When you’re lying to the devil,

Murder’s okay.” 

~ Jesse Welles

But it wasn’t just the excitement about seeing Jesse Welles that made the day – and the festival itself – so spectacular. 

On the car ride down to Croton Point Park, we discussed the 2026 lineup we couldn’t wait to see: Tom Chapin & The Chapin Sisters, Leah Song from Rising Appalachia, the Guthrie Family Singers, David Amram, the Ebony Hillbillies. And of course, there’s the mainstage lineup: Cimafunk, Margo Price, Chaparelle, and the combination of Warren Haynes, Grahame Lesh, and Daniel Donato – the latter two of whom played in my hometown of Woodstock, NY, from June 11th to June 13th. There was also a free, surprise outdoor show on the front porch of a mainstay local business, HappyLife Productions, owned by renowned illustrator Mike DuBois, best known for his original poster artwork for the Grateful Dead, Allman Brothers, the Rolling Stones, AC/DC, and Levon Helm, to name a few. One of the perks of living in Woodstock, NY! 

Getting Back to the Garden 

As we arrived at the festival, we couldn’t help but relish the beauty of the day. Alongside the lush and native trees, plants, and wildlife of Croton Point Park, we decided that if you could bottle up summer, that would have been the day to do it. 

We grabbed our chairs, coolers, and additional gear and headed to the entry gate. While waiting in line, one of the coolest things we noticed was the crowd’s intergenerational nature— a crowd as diverse and varied as our healthiest communities: kids being carried on their dads’ shoulders, moms holding their toddlers’ hands as they toddled to the water station, friends, couples, and folks ranging from their early twenties to their eighties. 

While music is the main focus of the festival, there was family-friendly programming for everyone, including a puppet fish parade by the Riverkeeper Fish Migration Celebration, breathwork sessions, an environmental panel (the event was zero waste – how cool is that!), a community-centered Circle of Song, a retrospective photo walk lovingly named “Toshi and Pete’s Grove,” and more! There were also some banging food trucks (shout-out to the poke bowl station and the best coconut sorbet I’ve ever had). 

Settling in, we chose a spot close to the back of the main stage. We were greeted by the high-energy group SNACKTIME, hailing from Philadelphia, who had the already large crowd dancing and out of their chairs with their dynamic blend of alternative soul and funk. The joy was infectious, and the buzz in the crowd was truly palpable. We eagerly waited for the band Chaparelle to hear some face-melting guitar solos and harmonies from supergroup members Zella Day, Jesse Woods, and Beau Bedford. They did not disappoint!

The Legacy Lives On

While a stacked lineup for any event or festival is a blessing to any music lover’s ears, especially one with multiple stages, it does mean that time has to be carved out and planned accordingly so as not to miss any must-sees. With that said, we headed over to the Rainbow Stage to hear The Guthrie Family Singers. Composed of Sarah Lee Guthrie – daughter of Arlo Guthrie and Woody Guthrie’s granddaughter – as well as her daughter Robin and niece Serena, their sound was pleasant, nostalgic, and heartwarming. More than that, however, it signified a direct and audible lineage not only to the original Clearwater Festival but also to the intentions and values that Toshi and Pete Seeger imbued it with.

As pillars of the popularized American Folk movement, social activist-artists like Toshi and Pete Seeger, Odetta, and Woody Guthrie (or Pete and Woody’s group, the Almanac Singers or The Weavers) inspired dozens if not hundreds of artists by the way they spoke – and sang – openly about their dedication to values such as workers’ rights, environmentalism, anti-racism, and anti-nationalism. Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, Neil Young, and many others described as powerful voices of American “counterculture” cited them as primary influences on their own voices and work. As Jesse Welles has stated, he considers himself to be “singing the news.” 

Listening to the lineup, it’s clear that this legacy lives on; not just through traditional string band groups like the Ebony Hillbillies (whose traditions precede those of even Seeger or Guthrie), or folk musicians like Leah Song, but through other represented genres as well. During Cimafunk’s set – specializing in Cuban and Afro-Caribbean funk and hip-hop – Ben Jaffe of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band was brought out as a special guest. And while perhaps an entirely separate essay could be written (and many have been) on the connection between the history and spirit of American jazz and folk – and even hip hop – the sense of community and camaraderie both on stage and in the crowd, relating through music, was a beautiful thing to witness. 

Something’s Happening Here…

Since perhaps Occupy Wall Street and the beginnings of the Black Lives Matter movement, the broader energy around positive change in this country has not felt particularly hopeful. But as Stephen Stills sang in “For What It’s Worth,” there’s something happening here in our country, and the remainder of the festival felt like a perfect snapshot of the cultural spirit brewing. Standout moments included Margo Price singing Woody Guthrie’s “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos),“ and her own aptly titled track, “Don’t Let the Bastards Get You Down.“ Haynes, Lesh, and Donato did an emotionally charged acoustic cover of Neil Young’s “Ohio“ before bringing back Ben Jaffe.

And then, of course, there was Jesse Welles, singing lyrics from his own catalog like those from his song “No Kings”: 

“…every color, every culture, every language, every creed, and no kings, no kings, no kings.“ 

As the headliner, it was clear why this was the vibe: to amplify — as a culture — our desire for unity, freedom, clean water, land, and skies. For peace, and for justice. Amplifying that a twenty-something-year-old student can stand in the audience next to a thirty-year-old, a fifty-year-old, and a seventy-year-old, and that they can all sing along, wishing for the same thing with a sense of unity in their individual harmonies. 

We were right up front by the time Jesse’s set started. It was electric. Even more so when, at the end, under the banner reading “For Pete’s Sake,“ Jesse brought out Margo Price, the Guthrie Family Singers, Warren Haynes, Grahame Lesh, and Daniel Donato for a powerful rendition of Woody Guthrie’s song, “This Land is Your Land,“ with the entire audience singing along as one. 

Residual Reverberations

“We, too, were hungry for inspiration and thirsty for change; we couldn’t help but rave about how exciting it was to feel part of something and to feel, intrinsically, that there was a tangible shift toward better days.”

The entire drive home, all we could talk about was our mutual sense of revitalization. Despite how physically exhausted we were, we stopped at The Red Line Diner for sustenance and to continue our animated discussion over fries. We, too, were hungry for inspiration and thirsty for change; we couldn’t help but rave about how exciting it was to feel part of something and to feel, intrinsically, that there was a tangible shift toward better days. Music is powerful that way. So is community, and community-driven activism. If it’s a larger movement we’re looking for, we can make it happen. We could feel it happening. 

It’s already happening here, in the Hudson Valley, in your home and backyard, or at events like the Hudson River Music Festival. 

Photos + Video courtesy of Hudson River Music Festival +  Madison Dodd + Urana Kinlen
FEATURED Photo by Madison Dodd

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