Richie Havens

Richie Havens entered the world in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood and shifted to Greenwich Village in 1961, arriving precisely as the folk revival gathered momentum. Performing at venues such as Cafe Wha?, he cultivated a singular approach: an open-tuned guitar strummed percussively while his thumb barred chords, paired with a gruff, rhythmically insistent vocal delivery that held audiences spellbound. Douglas Records signed him in 1965, issuing two albums that built a devoted local audience.

When the Verve division of MGM Records launched its folk-oriented Verve Forecast imprint in 1967 and added Havens to its roster alongside other roots-oriented artists, the outcome was his third long-player, Mixed Bag. Chart success remained elusive until 1968, when Something Else Again finally registered; in fact his fourth, third, and second albums all appeared on the charts that year, listed in that sequence. A double album, Richard P. Havens 1983, followed in 1969.

Havens’s visibility surged after his 1969 Woodstock performance and the prominent placement he received in the 1970 concert film and soundtrack. Alarm Clock, the first release after that exposure, reached the Top 30 and yielded the Top 20 single “Here Comes the Sun,” marking his strongest commercial period even as international touring demand continued to grow. By the close of the 1970s he had ceased recording altogether, concentrating exclusively on live performances.

A burst of activity returned him to the studio in 1987 with the new album Simple Things, a collection of Bob Dylan and Beatles covers, and a career-spanning compilation. In 1991, after fifteen years away from major-label affiliation, he joined Sony Music and delivered Now. Verve Forecast released Nobody Left to Crown in 2008. Havens suffered a fatal heart attack at his Jersey City, New Jersey residence in April 2013 at the age of seventy-two.