The festival is the brainchild of Andy French, the writer behind music blog Raven Sings The Blues.
“The name ‘Deep In The Valley,’ it came from a country song. It’s from a Texas group called the Shinglers, and I liked the idea of it both echoing the idea that we are in the Hudson Valley but quite far up and away from where a lot of people tend to travel just out of the city, but also the idea of finding a deeper connection to music within the Hudson Valley, and kind of celebrating both its beauty and the beauty of the music together all in one day.”
Started in 2006 as an mp3 blog, Raven Sings The Blues has evolved into a daily review site with an eye toward the experimental, psychedelic, and improvisational.
“A lot of the stuff that I cover tends to not be the kind of things that get rolled into a music festival," French told WAMC. "The way that the festival circuit rolls out in the summer, there's always, there’s some inclusions in the smaller print of posters that ended up being the kind of stuff that I had always had on the site. I had thought what I really wanted to see was the kind of festival that had a lot of kind of kind of immediacy to it, bands that were more into performances that could only really be captured within the day.”
With Deep In The Valley, French is living his dream. From headliner and new age legend Laraaji to one-off collaborations like the Chris Forsyth, Ryan Jewell, Bill Nace trio, the day is about the magic of improvisation and tapping into the living moment.
“It's kind of the idea of collaboration and openness where the lines of experimental and psychedelic kind of mix together into something that leans both into jazz, folk, improv, all of that, you know, where all those lines kind of cross," said French. "And I kind of want to bring that together into a day of music.”
French hopes to build a sense of community, not commercialism, around Deep In The Valley.
“It's not the kind of thing that you're going to have to save up for weeks to spend a day getting music on a gorgeous farm that's in Red Hook, or just outside of Red Hook, rather, with a good group of musicians that are all going to kind of create a day that that feels comfortable, serene, exciting, but at the same time, a very beautiful day of music, celebrating in the Hudson Valley, open to families, the kind of thing that that doesn't really exist within the festival circuit and all of the big VIP craziness that that kind of entails elsewhere.”
For performer Matt Valentine of the duo Wet Tuna, French has earned credibility as a curator through his evident commitment to music over profit.
“He’s always kind of tried to shine some light on it in a way that isn't about, like, selling like these huge block ads that maybe have nothing to do with the music. And I think that that's also a big part of it, too. You know, it's just a little bit below the meniscus of like, what everyone accepts these days. And I think if you like looking in that kind of view, I think that there's a lot to dig.”
Valentine can’t wait to take to the stage at From The Ground Brewery Saturday.
“I like to tell people with these events, it's like, if you like DIY culture, like, you'd rather go to buy a loaf of homemade bread by someone who farmed the wheat and like, you know, who maybe like designed the label on the package- Or you like Wonder Bread," explained Valentine. "It's like, I think that's the way I tell people. If you prefer to get the homegrown loaf, you should come check out this fest.”
Doors open for the Deep In The Valley festival in Red Hook, New York at 11:30 a.m. Saturday.
