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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 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 opened Woodstock and got stuck playing for 3 hours because other performers were late getting there.
The tune Freedom was derived from a song Motherless Child which was about a common practice during slavery in which slave owners would sell slaves children to other slave owners . RIP Richie
Mr. Havens had an illustrious career indeed. He recorded on a variety of labels, from Verve Forecast to MGM to Stormy Forest to Douglas to A&M and others. He's another one of those folk artists that started from humble beginnings when playing the Greenwhich Village coffee shop tours, as Havens once remarked. I remember picking up his early lp's at Woolworth's (Mixed Bag and Electric Havens.) when I finally gained summer employment during my high school years. My favorite album of his is probably Alarm Clock, released in the summer of '71.
It's somewhat ironic that his passing comes the day after Earth Day as he was one of the founders of National Guard, a nationwide organization that helps children learn about all things environment, and IIRC he co-founded that cause on Earth Days 20 year anniversary.
I never got to see him in concert but talked to other music collector friends of mine who did. They told me he was as personable a performer as one could meet.
We played Havens' cover of "In My Life" for our wedding...
We thought... rephrase that, I thought that his voice evoked such heart felt emotion and despite the philistines on Amazon.com might think the synth strings made it most appropriate.
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