Richie Havens
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Richard Pierce "Richie" Havens (January 21, 1941 – April 22, 2013) was an American composer working in folk as a guitarist and vocalist. He is best known for his intense and rhythmic guitar style (often in open tunings), soulful covers of pop and folk songs, and his opening performance of "Motherless Child" at the 1969 Woodstock Festival.
He is also known for his 1980 version of "Going Back to My Roots".
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Woodstock and rise in fame
Havens' live performances earned widespread notice. His Woodstock appearance in 1969 catapulted him into stardom and was a major turning point in his career. Havens recalled that he was told to continue playing because many artists scheduled to perform after him were delayed in reaching the festival location with highways at a virtual standstill. Havens recalled being called back for several encores. At the end of his set, Havens improvised a song based on the old spiritual "Motherless Child" that became "Freedom". In an interview with Cliff Smith, for Music-Room, he explained:
I'd already played every song I knew and I was stalling, asking for more guitar and mic, trying to think of something else to play – and then it just came to me ... The establishment was foolish enough to give us all this freedom and we used it in every way we could.
The subsequent Woodstock movie release helped Havens reach a worldwide audience. He also appeared two weeks later at the Isle of Wight Festival, in late August 1969.
Following the success of his Woodstock performance, Havens started his own record label, Stormy Forest, and released Stonehenge in 1970. Later that year came Alarm Clock, which included the George Harrison–penned hit single, "Here Comes the Sun". This was Havens's first album to reach Billboard 's Top 30 Chart. Stormy Forest went on to release four more of his albums: The Great Blind Degree (1971), Live On Stage (1972), Portfolio (1973), and Mixed Bag II (1974). Memorable television appearances included performances on The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. On the latter program, the audience reacted with such enthusiasm that, when the applause continued even after the commercial break, Carson asked Havens to return the following night.
Havens also began acting during the 1970s. He was featured in the original 1972 stage presentation of The Who's Tommy, as Othello in the 1974 film Catch My Soul, in Greased Lightning alongside Richard Pryor, and in Bob Dylan's Hearts of Fire.
Havens increasingly devoted his energies to educating young people about ecological issues. In the mid-1970s, he co-founded the Northwind Undersea Institute, an oceanographic children's museum on City Island in The Bronx, New York City. That, in turn, led to the creation of the Natural Guard, an organization Havens described as "...a way of helping kids learn that they can have a hands-on role in affecting the environment. Children study the land, water, and air in their own communities and see how they can make positive changes from something as simple as planting a garden in an abandoned lot."
In July 1978, he was a featured performer at the Benefit Concert for The Longest Walk, an American Indian spiritual walk from Alcatraz to Washington, D.C. affirming treaty rights, as a result of legislation that had been introduced to abrogate Indian treaties.
Discography
Studio albums
| Year | Album | US Top 200 |
|---|---|---|
| 1966 | Mixed Bag | 182 |
| 1968 | Something Else Again | 184 |
| 1968 | Electric Havens | 192 |
| 1969 | The Richie Havens Record | – |
| 1969 | Richard P. Havens, 1983 | 80 |
| 1970 | Stonehenge | 155 |
| 1971 | Alarm Clock | 29 |
| The Great Blind Degree | 126 | |
| 1973 | Portfolio | 182 |
| 1974 | Mixed Bag II | 186 |
| 1976 | The End Of The Beginning | 157 |
| 1977 | Mirage | – |
| 1980 | Connections | – |
| 1983 | Common Ground | – |
| 1987 | Simple Things | 173 |
| Sings Beatles and Dylan | – | |
| 1991 | Now | – |
| 1994 | Cuts to the Chase | – |
| 2002 | Wishing Well | – |
| 2004 | Grace of the Sun | – |
| 2008 | Nobody Left to Crown | – |
Live albums
| Year | Album | US Top 200 |
|---|---|---|
| 1972 | Richie Havens on Stage | 55 |
| 1990 | Live at the Cellar Door | – |
| 2015 | Paris Live 1969 | – |
Compilations
| Year | Album | US Top 200 |
|---|---|---|
| 1987 | Collection | – |
| 1993 | Résumé: The Best of Richie Havens | – |
| 1995 | Classics | – |
| 1999 | Time | – |
| 2000 | The Millennium Collection | – |
| 2004 | Dreaming as One: The A&M Years | – |
| 2005 | High Flyin' Bird | – |
| 2012 | My Own Way | – |
Singles
| Year | Name | US BB | US CB |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1967 | "No Opportunity Necessary" | – | – |
| 1969 | "Rocky Raccoon" | – | 92 |
| "Lady Madonna" | – | – | |
| 1970 | "Handsome Johnny" | 115 | – |
| "Alarm Clock" | – | – | |
| 1971 | "Here Comes the Sun" | 16 | 15 |
| 1972 | "Freedom" | – | – |
| 1973 | "What About Me" | – | – |
| "It Was a Very Good Year" | – | – | |
| "Eyesight of the Blind" | 111 | 101 | |
| 1976 | "I'm Not in Love" | 102 | – |
| 1977 | "We All Wanna Boogie" | – | – |
| 1980 | "Going Back to My Roots" | – | – |
Appearances
- A Long Time Comin' by The Electric Flag – sitar and percussion (1968)
- Sesame Street (1971), He sings Imagination Rain. Animated by Steve Zuckerman.
- Please Don't Touch by Steve Hackett (1978)
- Music and Songs from Starlight Express (1987) – performing "Light at the End of the Tunnel" and the "Starlight Sequence"
- Goya... a Life in Song – vocal/guitar performance on "Dog in the Quicksand".
- Songs of the Civil War (1991) – "Follow the Drinking Gourd" and "Give Us a Flag"
- OVO by Peter Gabriel (2000) (soundtrack to the Millennium Dome Show)
- "Freedom" on The Best of The Jammy's Volume One w/ The Mutaytor
- "The Long Road" (duet with Cliff Eberhardt) on 1990 album The Long Road
- "Gay Cavalier" (duet with Pino Daniele) on 1983 album Common Ground
- Some Assembly Required by Assembly of Dust's 2009
- Married... with Children (1992), "Rock of Ages" – guest appearance as himself
- "El Lugar (The Place)" by Francesco Bruno (1995), in which he appears as co-author and interpreter of the song
- Lifelines Live by Peter, Paul and Mary (1996)
- Warriors of Virtue (1997) – "Inside of You"
- Goodbye Country by Groove Armada (2001) – "Little by Little" and "Healing"
- Lovebox (Groove Armada) by Groove Armada (2002) – "Hands of Time"
