RICHIE HAVENS RIP

Richie Havens died last week at the age of 72. I first became aware of him, as did many others, from his legendary performance from the WOODSTOCK '69 music festival. I remember being very young watching the WOODSTOCK movie numerous times on PBS and his performance stood out more than any of the other bands. As the story goes, Richie was scheduled to be the second performer of the festival but was moved to first because scheduled openers, Sweetwater, were stuck in traffic. Originally planning to play a 4 song set, those in attendance got more than they bargained for as the event organizers urged him to play on due to more performers being stuck in festival traffic. His set is rumored to have lasted over 2 1/2 hours and after returning for several encores he basically ran out of songs to play. Returning to the stage one last time, Richie improvised the spiritual "Motherless Child" into "Freedom", the legendary jam that would set the tone for the rest of the festival and a generations to come.

Thanks to youtube, we can watch some his legendary performances(s)

FREEDOM


HERE COMES THE SUN

 TUPELO HONEY---JUST LIKE A WOMAN