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Richie Havens (1941-2013)


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Richie Havens, the man who opened the famous Woodstock Music Festival in 1969, passed away this Monday (April 22nd) at the age of 72 from a heart attack.

Sadly, this news wasn't even a blip in the mainstream media. I flukily came across this sad news just surfing around on the internet.

Havens covered a lot of Beatles' (Strawberry Fields Forever, from Woodstock) and Bob Dylan songs (Just Like a Woman), but Havens was such a gifted guitarist that when he covered a song, it became his own.

During his performance at Woodstock, he had run out of songs so he improvised one, a song called Freedom:

He also was an accomplished writer and composer of his own music. For those of you who might've played adventure games you might remember the Tex Murphy series of adventure games; he was good friends of the creator of the, Chris Jones. Havens was the singer/songwriter of the song Tex's Lament, featured in The Pandora Directive, along with Trying to Try and Slow Down, from the Overseer soundtrack.

He went on to record over twenty studio albums, including one of my all-time favourite albums: Common Ground.

Rest in Peace, Richie Havens.

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Thank you Dylan for beating me to this. I'm glad you opened my eyes to Richie Havens' music a couple years ago when we were chatting. I sought out much of his music and have enjoyed it immensely. I had heard about his passing a couple of days ago and was going to post my condolences about it. I agree that he was tremendously underrated as a singer, songwriter, guitarist; but I am at least thankful that he lived quite a full life rather than other artists similar to him (like Nick Drake for example).

Many thanks to you for your great post. :clapping:

R.I.P. Richie Havens...

Dennis

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Thank you Dylan for beating me to this. I'm glad you opened my eyes to Richie Havens' music a couple years ago when we were chatting. I sought out much of his music and have enjoyed it immensely. I had heard about his passing a couple of days ago and was going to post my condolences about it. I agree that he was tremendously underrated as a singer, songwriter, guitarist; but I am at least thankful that he lived quite a full life rather than other artists similar to him (like Nick Drake for example).

Many thanks to you for your great post. :clapping:

R.I.P. Richie Havens...

Dennis

No problem and thanks for the reply, Dennis. You made an excellent point: I am glad he lived a very full and long life.

Take care Dennis,

Dylan

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