Richie Havens died

Singer Richie Havens (b. 1941) died yesterday of a heart attack at age 72.  To many of us who grew up in the Sixties, he was an iconic folk singer—not wildly popular, but immensely talented and certainly not obscure.  He first gained fame as the opening act of the Woodstock Music Festival in 1969 (I have his autograph, along with several other performers, on an original Woodstock poster I won in a contest).  Here’s the Wikipedia note about how he came to everyone’s notice, and I follow it with the video of that fantastic performance:

Havens’ reputation as a live performer earned him widespread notice. His Woodstock appearance proved to be a major turning point in his career.  As the festival’s first performer, he held the crowd for nearly three hours (in part because he was told to perform a lengthy set because many artists were delayed in reaching the festival location), and he was called back for several encores. Having run out of tunes, he improvised a song based on the old spiritual “Motherless Child” that became “Freedom”. The subsequent Woodstock movie release helped Havens reach a worldwide audience. He also appeared at the Isle of Wight Festival in late August 1969.

If you look closely, you might notice that he’s missing all of his top teeth in this video. As I recall, he had them replaced later, dispelling the rumor that his unique voice was due to his partial toothlessness.

Havens continued touring and performing (my sister, a big fan, saw him a gazillion times) until he retired last year because of health issues.

Another gem from Havens is his complete reworking of the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun.”

Here’s how I remember him: