Richie Havens

I went to see Richie Havens perform this evening. He put on quite a show. Of course he is getting fairly old now – 66 by all counts – and his audience were of a similar age (there weren’t too many youngsters in the crowd); but his voice still sounds the same as it did back in the 60’s (remember his opening act at Woodstock?). He still does that percussive rhythmic guitar strumming while his thumb frets the notes and his foot stomps up and down. He is pretty hard on his guitars, breaking 2 strings during the show, and re-tuning without missing a beat.

He looked like a genuinely nice guy who has grown old gracefully. Of course he did many of his old classic songs – Freedom, Here Comes the Sun, etc. One can only imagine how many times he has performed those tunes in his life.