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Remembering Richie Havens
His 1967 debut album was truly a “Mixed Bag”
I was recently reminiscing about the essential albums that made an impression on me in my youth. Since I attended college from 1966 to 1970, most of the albums I owned were either rollicking rock ’n’ roll or seriously psychedelic. And then I remembered Mixed Bag by Richie Havens.
I just listened to it again with more mature ears and, remarkably, it still sounds fresh, dare I say even “unique.” That’s a word that rarely applies to a folk singer, but it fits Richie Havens perfectly. With a rough-and-tumble voice that had bits of gravel in it, Havens could belt out songs with the best of them, but he was just as capable of gentle melodies. He could veer from angry folk to soft rock to swing in an instant.
Most unusual, though, was his style of guitar playing; “unique” definitely comes to mind. If you watch him on video, you’ll notice two things right away:
- First, Havens isn’t just playing an acoustic guitar, he’s feeling it. He’s a musician in motion, moving in synch with the song, actively keeping the beat with his foot. In effect, he turns his guitar and his body into a unified string-and-percussion instrument.
- Second, he attacks the strings on the guitar like it’s a runaway train, strumming them with such velocity that it’s…
