Rest In Peace Richie Havens

Amidst tragedies both foreign and domestic, April has continued its mean streak of cultural cruelty, claiming in its wake Jonathan Winters, the rightful heir to not only Robin Williams’ manic spasms, but much of modern comedy; both Phil Ramone and Andy Johns, two gentlemen responsible for the production of most of what we call rock and roll; and on Earth Day, musical/spiritual guru Richie Havens, whose eternal touring began long before his endearing and raucous performance at Woodstock, in the coffee houses of Greenwich Village, among the likes of Bob Zimmerman and Joan Baez. 

I was an awkward fifteen years old when my Boy Scout Troop’s Assistant Scoutmaster Randall Sampson—who had been to Woodstock, before settling down with a wife and children in suburban Delaware County, PA--  offered to take me to a concert at West Chester University, where he was serving as fire marshal, and had scored free tickets. I hadn’t had many concert experiences, but was excited to see someone who performed on stage at Woodstock: the man who, decades prior, needed a matchbook to strum furiously about “Freedom,” and whose voice and style was a rhythmic blur. Appearing on the small stage at WCU, Richie Havens was larger than life, a towering figure draped in cloth and beads, bearded. If he looked to me then as some shaman from the 1960s, as I have grown he has become a celebrity of cultural and political validity and sustainability: a singer and songwriter who, through forty-five years of relentless touring and promotion, changed minds and promoted peace through music, without selling out (a few commercial jingles in the early 1980s can't count, compared to the corporate endeavors of his contemporaries). At that show, at fifteen years old, I marveled at his ability to make heavy percussive use of the acoustic guitar, chopping away with fury and ease. He was keenly aware of his audience, their reactions, and a performer’s necessary skill, in establishing a personal connection—as people, former children, still seeking answers, and still interested in the ability to daydream. He sang from the catalog of his generation: Dylan, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, The Beatles, and his own compositions, with transitions built of fables and lore, ever one step away from Kerouac-style interpersonal rambles, but morality tales from a time and place more revolutionary than my own, it seemed. At the set break, Randall and I encountered him the hall, just as he was about to go back onstage: he hurriedly signed my ticket, ‘a friend forever.’ As an encore that night, Havens took a musical risk I will forever admire and never forget: he emerged without his accompanying guitarist and without his own acoustic, but held to the microphone a small box, emitting a monotone feedback tone. To this drone he chanted, nearly monk-like, the Pink Floyd anthem “On The Turning Away.” From that moment on, Richie Havens established for me a level of performance, and means by which one might establish a connection between music and its listener, unlike  any I had previously known.

[my ticket stub, from my first Richie Havens show]

Of those on my See-Before-They-Die-Appeared-At-Woodstock roster (that includes Cocker, Melanie, Phil Lesh, and John Sebastian), only one started their own record label following their immense success onstage: Richie Havens departed from Verve and started his own label, Stormy Forest. He would release almost two dozen original albums during his career, as well as appear in a number of films. His potent political opinions delivered onstage appeared to be not part of his act, but rather the very reason for it: I remember once hearing his introduction to “Here Comes the Sun” include striking speculation about the dawning of a new peace in the middle east, a peace derived from means other than the military actions that were taking place in Iraq and Afghanistan. Like the troubadours of old, Havens’ legacy might be best described by those who attended his live performances, during which his strumming and songs sandwiched his soft-spoken recollections and narratives, as he wove his own history and the history of his generation into a hopeful present tense, if not a blissful and present-day idealism. Drawing from the common musical memories of that Woodstock generation—the Dylan, Baez, and Joplin references, as well as allusions to a whole host of forgotten characters from the founding generation of popular singer-songwriters—Havens serenaded crowds worldwide, consistently, for forty-five years before retiring from the road.

[photo found via Google]

Over the past dozen years, I have tracked down many of his original vinyl releases (and played his version of “Strawberry Fields Forever” last Thursday on my radio program), and in 2003 scored a ¼” reel-to-reel transcription of his Richie Havens on Stage album, from a college radio station’s discarded library. But none of these recordings may ever match the expressive, musical majesty and commanding presence Havens brought with him to the stage: I was lucky enough to see him at the Philadelphia Folk Festival, the Paramount Theater in Rutland, Vermont, and the Barre Opera House in Barre, Vermont, in 2009, one of his final tours. I met him a final time then, became tongue-tied as I shook his massive and calloused hand, thanked him for the heartfelt show. If I had the chance now, I would thank Richie Havens not only for devoting his life to the promotion of music, but for pursuing a craft so heartedly and so vigorously as to set a new example and expectation of the creative and popular artist: that if your voice is as sweet as Tupelo Honey, an expectation or even obligation exists, that one needs to forever relish in the sharing of their gift, with the world at large.