• Included in the Obituaries List and the Other Music Posts List.
• Richie Havens will be missed; his great talent makes me wish there were more black folksingers. His voice was unmistakable and unforgettable.

Martin Winfree

April 24, 2013 ·

I still can’t quite get how Facebook does things; I had meant for this comment to get more coverage, but evidently it didn’t, so here it is again:
Richie Havens will be missed; his great talent makes me wish there were more black folksingers. His voice was unmistakable and unforgettable. As I understand it, he was virtually the only musician on site when the 1969 Woodstock concerts started; everyone else was stuck in traffic. After playing for something like 2½ hours, Havens had run out of songs; so, following a quick tune-up on his guitar, he improvised one on the spot that was loosely built around “Motherless Child” – and that’s the one they put in the movie!