Richie Havens

Richie Havens possesses one of the most recognizable voices in popular music, and his fiery, poignant, soulful style has remained unique and ageless since he first emerged from the Greenwich Village Folk scene in the early 1960s. It’s a voice that has 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 more than three decades, Richie has used his music to convey messages of brotherhood and personal freedom. With more than 25 albums released and a touring schedule that would fatigue 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 began performing with The McCrea Gospel Singers at age 16. When he turned 20, Richie left Brooklyn to seek out the artistic stimulation of Greenwich Village. Richie’s reputation as a solo performer soon spread beyond the Village. After joining forces with legendary manager Albert Grossman (Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan), Richie landed his first record deal with Verve, which released his seminal and auspicious debut LP Mixed Bag in 1967. which featured a striking version of Bob Dylan’s “Just Like a Woman.”

Richie first earned widespread notice on the festival circuit, playing 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. But Richie’s Woodstock appearance proved a major turning point in his career. As the festival’s first performer, he held the crowd spellbound for nearly three hours and was called back for six encores. Having run out of tunes, he improvised a song based on the spiritual “Motherless Child” that became “Freedom,” a song now considered to be the anthem of a generation.

Meanwhile Richie started his own record label, Stormy Forest, and in 1970 delivered Stonehenge and Alarm Clock, which yielded his Beatles remake smash hit single “Here Comes the Sun.” 1993 heralded the release of Résumé, The Best of Richie Havens (Rhino), a collection of his seminal late-1960s, early-70s recordings, and 1994 brought the new studio album, Cuts to the Chase. In 1999, Richie authored his first book, They Can’t Hide Us Anymore.

Since 2000, he has been remastering his early recordings, and of course, he continues touring. His new self-produced album, Grace of the Sun, is laden with stunning guitar work by Walter Parks and Christopher Cunningham and features contributions by world musicians Badal Roy (India), Jorge Alfano (Argentina) and Hasan Isakkut (Turkey).

For Richie Havens, making music is a continuous journey, one that advances a step further with each album. “My albums,” he said, “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.”