Richie Havens
Richie Havens
Richard Pierce Havens, known professionally as Richie Havens, was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. His music encompassed elements of folk, soul, and rhythm and blues. He is best known for his intense and rhythmic guitar style, soulful covers of pop and folk songs, and his opening performance at the 1969 Woodstock Festival...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionFolk Singer
Date of Birth21 January 1941
CityBrooklyn, NY
CountryUnited States of America
anymore flew hide picture
When I flew over the crowd, that's what I said to myself, ... I said, 'If they put this picture in the newspaper, it's all over for them, because now they can't hide us anymore .'
beginning call control future happens lies people realize time whatsoever
You can't even kill yourself if it isn't your time to go. People have no control whatsoever over what happens to them, and they are beginning to realize this. The future lies in the time of living. Your doing something will get you into tomorrow, if you want to call it tomorrow. If you want to make those distinctions at all.
anybody grew kids people
I actually grew up with people from all over the world. There wasn't enough of a difference to feel different from anybody else. Their grandmother hollered at me like my grandmother hollered at all the kids when anybody did anything wrong. And their parents did the same thing.
friend greenwich hung lived mostly reading
We had been reading about these beatniks who hung out or lived in Greenwich Village, and we wanted to find out what a 'beatnik' was, and so a friend and I went right to the source. What we learned, of course, was that beatniks were mostly artists.
business songs
I really sing songs that move me. I'm not in show business. I'm in the communications business. That's what it's for me.
form major music
Music is the major form of communication. It's the commonest vibration, the people's news broadcast, especially for kids.
communication people sang songs wrote
Many times, people have come up to me after singing some songs, and they'd say, 'Richie, do you know what you did?' And I'd say, 'What?' And they'd go, 'I wrote these songs down for you to sing, and you sang them all in a row.' But that's the kind of communication that happens, you know.
seen since
I haven't seen my face since I started growing my beard, which was when I was a teenager, almost; I never shaved. So I don't really know what I look like.
beginning brand level people talk wonderful
It's a brand new world, and it's just beginning again, but on such a wonderful level of being able to communicate with each other directly, being able to talk to people all over the world,
corner friend gigs gotta guy hear mine month
I told him, 'You don't need to get gigs from the union. You can make your own band,' ... That's how he did it. He went down to the coffeehouse I told him to go to. A month later, I'm around the corner at another cafe. Friend of mine comes up and says, 'You gotta hear this band! This guy was great!' And I went around the corner and went, 'It's him! It's that guy!' He was so magical.
anniversary forward invited looking original people time wonderful
It's the first time that the original people were invited back to play, ... They're doing it right. It's going to be a wonderful 30th anniversary and reunion. I'm looking forward to it.
far hear kids millions music needed people straight talented web
Go around the middleman; get your music straight to the people, ... You've got the Web now. Do it. Don't even hesitate. Because people want to hear real music, and there's a lot of talented kids out there, millions of them as far as I'm concerned, and they really have something to say. And they just needed their medium, and now they have it. That's what I tell them. Go to the Web ... but do it.
asking blows finally heard kids last oldest people starting sung talking youngest
In the last two years, the youngest people are asking me for the oldest songs, ... I'm talking kids . It blows my mind. I look at them and go, 'How could you have heard that song? I haven't sung it in 20 years.' It's like I'm just starting now. I finally got a career.
You've got to go down to the Village. That's where it's happening.