ALTAMONT—When the first Old Songs Festival was held in 1980 at Tawasentha Park, Walt Michael was there. Now, 25 years later, and long after the festival outgrew the park and was moved to the Altamont fairgrounds, Michael is still performing at it—to much larger audiences.
"It’s old songs and it’s old friends," said Michael, a former Altamont resident. "What’s exciting to me is that it’s still vibrant."

Michael said he has been glad to watch Old Songs survive, and thrive, despite the bad mass-produced music constantly pouring out of America.
"It’s real and it’s rich," Michael said of the traditional music played at Old Songs. "It talks about the real things that real people do."

The multi-instrumentalist and singer will be joining dozens of other artists for a weekend of music and dance at the Old Songs Festival on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Michael will be playing the hammered dulcimer—a stringed instrument played with mallets—leading his group, Walt Michael & Co. The other members are Evan Stover and Frank Orsini on the fiddles, and Tom Wetmore on bass.
Like the festival itself, the group doesn’t confine itself to a single style of music, Michael said. Sometimes the performers play sonorous ballads, almost like a classical quartet. Other times, they rip it up, "hell-bent for leather," Michael said.

The group draws from several styles, like Appalachian, bluegrass, folk, whatever they want to play, Michael said.
"All these players are heart players," he said. "They are capable of getting into it and going after it."

Like many of the performers at Old Songs, Michael first became interested in traditional music during the folk boom of the 1960’s. His interest became a passion when he worked as a volunteer among the poor in the mountains of West Virginia, where Appalachian music was born.

"The festival to go to"
A big part of Michael’s musical development took place at the Fox Hollow Folk Music Festival in Petersburg, Penn., which he called "the parent event of Old Songs."

The Fox Hollow festival was one of the biggest in the country, and, when it ended in the ’70’s, local resident Andy Spence wanted to keep a folk-music festival going in the Northeast. So, she started the Old Songs Festival. The first one was held in Tawasentha Park in Guilderland, and it moved to Altamont the next year.
"Fairly quickly, it became known as the festival to go to in the Northeast," said Roger Mock, of Old Songs, Inc., the Voorheesville-based organization that runs the festival and various other traditional-music events throughout the year.

As the popular definition of folk music has narrowed to mean singer-songwriters, Old Songs continues to offer a broad selection of traditional musical styles from America, Europe, and other parts of the world.
"It’s a folk-music festival, but not folk music to some people who use that term," Mock said.

It’s music that the average person doesn’t encounter very often.
"Unless you’re listening to public radio and you’re lucky enough that they’re playing it, you just don’t hear this music," Michael said. But, said Michael, "When you do, it can be life-altering."

It certainly altered Michael’s life. A professional musician for 35 years, he has recorded 14 albums and videos, has played at the White House and Lincoln Center, and performed on Broadway and on network TV, including The Tonight Show on NBC.

Still, it’s not the success that drives him, but the camaraderie among players, and the joy of learning a new song. Since tunes are passed around orally and preserved in memories, Michael said, bad songs are weeded out and the best survive.
"Only the good stuff sticks around," he said.

Other acts

While many performers this weekend are veteran musicians, part of the anniversary celebration is the recognition of the next generation of traditional musicians.
"They’re keeping the tradition alive and passing it forward," Mock said.

Among the younger musicians at the festival will be Brittany Haas, a 16-year-old fiddle prodigy from California.

Haas is the great-great-granddaughter of a Missouri fiddler. She took up the violin when she was five and has been playing ever since. One of her mentors, Appalachian fiddler Bruce Molsky, will be performing with Haas at the festival.

This year’s festival will also feature a Tree of Life Concert. With local folk singer Paddy Kilrain as host, several young people will take the stage, following in their parents’ footsteps.
"They’re mostly the offspring of performers," Mock said. "These are kids who have gone to the festival their whole lives."

Other highlights of the Old Songs Festival will be Celtic guitar and squeezebox player Guy Davis; banjo trailblazer Tony Trischka; the harmonious trio of Herdman Hills Mangsen; and Faith Petric, the 90-year-old folk singer.

International acts include Två, a Swedish fiddling duo, and Khac Chi, the first-ever Vietnamese group to play at Old Songs.

There will be, of course, the usual assortment of participatory jams, dances, and workshops, with some new additions, including a bamboo dance led by Khac Chi.

Meanwhile, festival-goers will camp out and meet up for informal play-alongs.
For newcomers to the festival, Mock said, "I would suggest they drop their preconceptions of what folk music is. Come during the day and really get a feel for the whole breadth of it."

Performances will be ongoing at 10 different areas during the day and main concerts will be in the evenings.
"Come and explore," said Mock, "and just go from area to area and see what you like."

The Old Songs Festival of Traditional Music and Dance will be this weekend at the Altamont fairgrounds, starting Friday night. A complete schedule and ticket prices are available at www.oldsongs.org.