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Richie Havens is gifted with one of the most recognizable voices
in popular music. His fiery, poignant, always soulful singing style
has remained unique and ageless since he first emerged from the
Greenwich Village folk scene in the early 1960’s. It’s a voice that
has inspired and electrified audiences from the Woodstock Music &
Arts Fair in 1969, to the Clinton Presidential Inauguration in 1993
-coming full circle with the 30th Woodstock Anniversary celebration,
"A Day In The Garden", in 1999.
For over three decades, Richie has used his music to convey messages
of brotherhood and personal freedom. With more than twenty-five
albums released and a touring schedule that would kill many a
younger man, he continues to view his calling as a higher one. As he
told The Denver Post, "I really sing songs that move me. I’m not in
show business, I’m in the communications business. That’s what it’s
about for me".
Born in Brooklyn, Richard P. Havens was the eldest of nine children.
At an early age, he began organizing his neighborhood friends into
street corner doo-wop groups, and was performing with The McCrea
Gospel Singers at 16. At the age of 20, Richie left Brooklyn to seek
out the artistic stimulation of Greenwich Village. "I saw the
Village as a place to escape to in order to express yourself", he
recalls. "I had first gone there during the beatnik days of the
1950’s to perform poetry, then I drew portraits for 2 years and
stayed up all night listening to folk music in the clubs. It took
awhile before I thought of picking up a guitar". Nina Simone was a
key vocal influence early on, and Fred Neil and Dino Valenti were
among the folksingers who had an impact on Richie during this
period.
Richie’s reputation as a solo performer soon spread beyond the
Village folk circles. He recorded two albums worth of demos for
Douglas International in 1965 and ’66, though none of the tracks
were released until his first two albums caused a stir. After
joining forces with legendary manager Albert Grossman, Richie landed
his first record deal with the Verve label, which released Mixed Bag
in 1967. This auspicious debut album featured standout tracks like,
"Handsome Johnny" (co-written by Richie and future Oscar-winning
actor Louis Gossett Jr.), "Follow", and the striking version of Bob
Dylan’s, "Just Like AWoman" that earned him the reputation of being
a premier interpreter of Dylan’s material.
Something Else Again (1968) became Richie’s first album to hit the
Billboard chart, and also pulled Mixed Bag onto the charts. That
same year, Douglas International added (unapproved) instrumental
tracks to his old demos and released two albums, Richie Havens’
Record and Electric Havens. Less than a year later, Richie’s first
coproduction, the two-disc Richard P. Havens, 1983 (Verve 1969),
gave fans a taste of his exciting live sound.
It was, in fact, as a live performer that Richie first earned
widespread notice. By decade’s end, he was in great demand in
colleges across the country, as well as on the international folk
and pop festival circuit. Richie played the 1966 Newport Folk
Festival, the 1967 Monterey Jazz Festival, the 1968 Miami Pop
Festival, the 1969 Woodstock Festival, the 1969 Isle of Wight
Festival, and the first Glastonbury Festival in 1970.
Richie’s Woodstock appearance proved to be a major turning point in
his career. As the festival’s first performer, he held the crowd
spellbound for nearly three hours, called back for encore after
encore. Having run out of tunes, he improvised a song based on the
old spiritual "Motherless Child" that became "Freedom", a song now
considered to be the anthem of a generation. The subsequent movie
release helped Richie reach a worldwide audience of millions.
Meanwhile Richie started his own record label, Stormy Forest, and
delivered Stonehenge in 1970. Later that year came Alarm Clock,
which yielded the hit single "Here Comes The Sun", and became
Richie’s first album to reach Billboard’s Top 30 Chart. Stormy
Forest went on to release four more of his own albums, The Great
Blind Degree (1971), Live On Stage (1972), Portfolio (1973), and
Mixed Bag II (1974).
Memorable television appearances included performances on two
now-legendary programs, 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, Johnny Carson asked Richie to return the following
night. In the show’s long history, the only other guest booked
back-to-back nights, based on overwhelming audience response, was
Barbra Streisand.
Richie also branched out into acting during the 1970’s. He was
featured in the original 1972 stage presentation of the Who’s Tommy,
and had the lead role in the 1974 film Catch My Soul, based on
Shakespeare’s Othello. In 1977, he co-starred with Richard Pryor in
Greased Lightning.
Increasingly, Richie devoted his energies to educating young people
about ecological issues. In the mid-1970’s, he co-founded the
Northwind Undersea Institute, an oceanographic children’s museum on
City Island in The Bronx. That, in turn, led to the creation of The
Natural Guard, an organization Richie describes 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".
During the 70’s and 80’s, Richie continued a non-stop world touring
schedule and a steady release of albums, including End Of The
Beginning, Mirage, Connections, the Italian-made Common Ground,
Simple Things, and Now.
He continued that live performance pace throughout the 90’s
including a landmark Madison Square Garden appearance at the Bob
Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert in 1992. Richie’s show-stopping
performance of "Just Like AWoman" was hailed by the press as one of
the all-star show’s finest performances.
1993 heralded the release of Resume, The Best Of Richie Havens
(Rhino), a long overdue collection of his seminal late 60’s, early
70’s recordings, and 1994 brought the new studio album, Cuts To The
Chase.
Other highlights of the past decade include his triumphant set at
the Troubadours Of Folk Festival at UCLA’s Drake Stadium, where,
once again, a capacity audience refused to let him leave the stage.
Richie fondly remembers this event as a "Greenwich Village Class
Reunion". At another Los Angeles appearance, His Holiness the Dalai
Lama asked Richie to perform "Lives In The Balance" and "Freedom" to
underscore his urgent message about the future of Tibet.
In the summer of 1999, Richie’s first book was released. The title,
They Can’t Hide Us Anymore, referred to Richie’s thoughts as he flew
in a helicopter over the crowds at Woodstock in 1969.
Richie greeted the year 2000 with a flurry of activity. He
relaunched Stormy Forest and began remastering and reissuing his
early recordings. Collaborations with Peter Gabriel and British
dance duo Groove Armada presented Richie to a whole new audience,
and sold out tours of Ireland and England were soon to follow,
including a return to England's legendary Glastonbury Festival,
where he played with his own band and then joined Groove Armada on
stage for a performance the BBC would call one of the highlights of
the three-day festival.
In 2002, Stormy Forest released a new studio album, Wishing Well,
which brought rave reviews from the press. Acoustic Guitar called
the recording "lush and meditative", Billboard said "this acoustic
soul giant truly seems to be getting more inspiring and graceful
with age", and Mojo remarked "he's lost none of his power to
enthrall and enchant".
In 2003, The National Music Council awarded Richie the American
Eagle Award for his place as part of America's musical heritage, and
for providing "a rare and inspiring voice of eloquence, integrity
and social responsibility".
And now this year brings another new, self-produced album, Grace Of
The Sun, which finds Richie again composing most of the tracks.
Laden with the stunning guitar work of Walter Parks and Christopher
Cunningham, and featuring contributions by world musicians Badal Roy
(India), Jorge Alfano (Argentina) and Hasan Isakkut (Turkey), the
result is an exotic and compelling tapestry that serves as the
perfect musical complement to Richie's own signature percussive
strumming and rich, melodic vocals.
For Richie Havens, making music is a continuous journey, and one
that advances a step further with each album. "My albums are meant
to be a chronological view of the times we’ve come through, what
we’ve thought about, and what we’ve done to grow and change. There’s
a universal point to which we all respond, and where all songs apply
to everyone".
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Artist's Web Site
See a YouTube clip from Richie Havens
Presented in conjunction with NCBPAC & Landshark Entertainment
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