The “Golden Hits Of The 70s”
Main MenuConcept Refinement The Author..Wayne JancikGolden Age Of The 50sGolden Age Of The 60s1970s and There After
RICHIE HAVENS
“HERE COMES THE SUN”
(George Harrison)
Stormy Forest 656
No. 16 May 22, 1971
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Richie Havens (b. Jan. 21, 1941, Brooklyn) was born into a large musical family, the eldest of nine children;
his father was a piano player. His turf was the Bedford Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. “Kids who didn’t
have jobs or who didn’t finish school ended up singing together,” Havens told Frets’ Mark Humphreys.
“That’s what I was doing when I was 13. In the ’50s, everyone did that to stay out of trouble. There was
nothing else to do.
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“When I first started playing the guitar, it wasn’t for myself; it was because I sang with a cappella groups. I
had a girlfriend who had two younger brothers, 11 and 13. They had a little group, and they were dynamic.
I used to do rehearsals with these kids, and a friend loaned me a guitar. This was the time of the hootenan
nies in Greenwich Village, so I took the kids over there. They killed everybody … I wasn’t really into
jumping up on anybody’s stage and singing by myself. But once I started fooling around with the guitar, it
was fun. And I started doing hootenannies [about 1960].” To support himself, Richie drew portraits, and
also worked for a florist and Western Union.
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Havens developed a distinctive style, which has been preserved for all time in the Woodstock (1970) film
footage: eyes shut, a sawing, thrashing guitar attack, and the unorthodox use of his thumb in chord finger
ing. Albert Grossman, Dylan’s manager, discovered Richie at the Cafe Wha? in the Village. Richie recorded
a few LPs worth of demo materials for the Douglas International label (none of which was issued until fame
found Richie) before switching to Verve-Folkways, and later, Stormy Forest, for the creation of his most
noted work. He appeared at the Newport Folk Festival (1966), then the Monterey Pop Festival (1967), the
Isle of Wight Pop Festival (1968), and finally, the Woodstock Festival (1969).
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“I opened the [Woodstock] Festival,” Havens told Goldmine’s Bob Grossweiner. “I was supposed to be fifth.
I said, ‘What am I doing here? No, no, not me, not first!’ I had to go on stage because there was no one else
to go on first–the concert was already two-and-a-half hours late. Everyone was at the Holiday Inn seven
miles away and couldn’t get to the stage because the one back road they thought they could take was
completely blocked.
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“My impression was that there were over a million people there. It was a completely unique experience. No
one expected it. ‘Freedom’ [Havens’s peak performance, featured in the film] was written right there on the
stage; it had never been sung before! It was spontaneous … I was alone on stage for two-and-a-half hours
before any of the other performers came.”
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Shortly after “the event of the century,” Havens issued his rendering of George Harrison’s “Here Comes the
Sun.” “I thought it was one of the happiest songs I could sing,” wrote Havens, for a “Best of .. :’ compila
tion. “It was a hopeful song, and I was singing a lot of songs that were not so hopeful, but were explaining
our problems. So, I thought, ‘This is a release for me, a song I could feel good about and other people could
feel happy about. It projected the fact that, in any case, it’s gonna be all right.”
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Havens never became a successful singles artist, but his large collection of LPs sold well throughout the
’70s–albums such as Richard P. Havens, 1983 (1969), Alarm Clock (1971), and Richie Havens on Stage
(1972). Richie branched into acting, in the ’70s, appearing in the stage production of the Who’s Tommy
(1972), the filmed version of Catch My Soul (1974), and co-starring with Richard Pryor in Greased
Lightning (1977). As an activist, he was responsible for founding the Natural Guard, a national hands-on
teaching vehicle for kids to learn of man’s effect on the environment, and the co-founding of Northwinds
Undersea Institute, an oceanographic museum located on City island in the Bronx.
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His relaxing, reassuring voice has been heard daily in commercials for McDonald’s, AMTRAK, Budweiser,
and the Cotton Association of America. In January 1993, Havens aided the ushering in of the Clinton
presidency by performing at the Earth Ball, an inaugural event sponsored by Renew America.
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