“It Could Be the First Day…” (Richie Havens interview, Part 1)

NOTE: Havens was one of my first musician interviews — and one of the best! Because I was green I didn’t know “phoners” (business slang for phone interviews) were typically supposed to be between 20 and 40 minutes. Havens and I talked the afternoon away. At the end of it, he asked me to come to the show and meet him. When I did, he said our conversation stood out as being one of the best interviews he has ever had! Thanks Richie!!  

As he watched over a sea of people while on stage at the Woodstock festival in 1969, Richie Havens got a sense of which way the wind was going to blow as the days moved forward.

He started singing the word “Freedom” over and over again realizing at this moment that his generation found its voice. Partly because of his talents as a singer and partly because of his ability to read the moment, Havens became a bellwether symbol for the festival. And over the years the festival became a cultural buoy for the baby-boomer generation.

“I was looking out over the people as I was strumming and this thought came to me. This was the freedom that my entire generation had been looking for,” said Havens.

All these years later and Havens is still a crowd pleaser at festivals who always tries to pay attention to his audiences and give them what they want.

Havens thinks of his performances as spiritual events where a bond is forged between himself and audience members. He never follows a set list. It is one of the ways Havens tries to keep things exciting.

He only plans the first song he is going to play in advance, and he says — of course — the last song is always “Freedom.” Everything in between is a chance for Havens to interact with his fans. The approach has worked over the years. Havens said he has never had trouble finding an audience, and he has never tired of what he does.

“It’s still like the first day to me,” said Havens.

In fact, Havens still fondly remembers the children’s songs he sang while growing up in Brooklyn in the 40s.

“Mares eat oats, and does eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy,” Havens sang on the phone to me. “My mother said when I was 1-year-old there were three songs that I used to sing all of the time. That was one of them. The other one was ‘It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie.’ Between those ones was ‘Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition.’

Havens joked that these songs foreshadowed his music career which has been full of accessible folksongs, artistic integrity, and there certainly were many protest songs in his bag over the years.