Richie Havens
Something Else Again

On August 15, 1969, at Max Yasgur's farm in Bethel, near Woodstock, an oceanic crowd gathers, eagerly awaiting the start of the three days of peace, love, and music that will forever change the history of rock. The three days that simultaneously marked the zenith and twilight of the countercultural movement of the Summer of Love.

The Hippie people who flock from everywhere and by any means at their disposal to participate in this epic “crapula” is countless. It only matters to know that this multitude is so vast that it completely paralyzed all access roads to the concert area. The thirty-two musicians who are to take turns on stage are so delayed that it disrupts the schedule of performances.

It’s already five in the afternoon, and the folk music section that is supposed to open the concert has yet to begin. Sweetwater got stuck in a double swastika traffic jam. In the meantime, the “flower children” are already all in a trip thanks to the flows of LSD orange sunshine and begin to show signs of great impatience.

A bearded man almost two meters tall, clad in an orange dashiki and wearing African sandals, takes to the stage with his acoustic guitar to save the day. His set includes a handful of songs. Instead, he has to play for almost three hours, performing his own songs and Beatles covers with great energy, until, exhausted and dripping with sweat, he starts with an incredible version of the gospel “Motherless Child” where he adds the word freedom and repeats it ad libitum, almost as if it were a mantra. A simple yet powerful word like an invocation: the cry of slaves in revolt, but also the hope of the oppressed capable of igniting the hearts of thousands of young people and pushing them to want to change the world. This extraordinary performance cements his place in music history, crystallizing and, in some aspects, influencing the entire career of a musician actually much deeper and more complex.

Richard Pierce Havens, born on January 21, 1941, in Brooklyn and raised in the Bedford Stuyvesant ghetto, started with a gospel and doo-wop musical background. He quickly gained appreciation on the Greenwich Village folk scene thanks to his great guitar skill based on open tunings and an extraordinary sense of rhythm, as well as his fabulous strumming, which involves using the thumb for chords and foot drumming to keep the rhythm, but above all for his unique and unmistakable warm and “smoky” voice.

“Something Else Again” is his second studio folk album, released in December 1967, produced by John Court and Jerry Schoenbaum for Verve Forecast Records.

The lineup features Havens dominating on guitar, sitar and tanpura, and on bongo percussion, but also as lead vocalist; Adrian Guillery and Paul Williams on electric guitar; Warren Bernhardt on piano, clavinet, and organ; Jeremy Steig on flute; Eddie Gomez on acoustic bass; Don Payne and Denny Gerrard on electric bass; Donald MacDonald and Skip Prokop on drums; Daniel Ben Zebulon on congas and, finally, John Blair on violin.

The ten tracks of this folk gem start with “No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed” where Richie's rhythm guitar finds push and support in the percussive groove of Bernhardt's piano.

Here is “Inside of Him,” but also “Sugarplums” (J. Court) where a delicate and nocturnal atmosphere prevails. The magic all comes from the notes of Steig's flute with the counterpoint of the piano and Havens' warm voice.

The song “The Klan” (A. Grey/D. Grey) becomes a powerful and explicit denunciation of the campaign of terror unleashed by the KKK in those years: “He who rides with the Klan he is a devil and not a man. For underneath that white disguise. I have looked into his eyes. Brother, stand with me it's not easy to be free.”

“Don't Listen to Me” is an invitation to let go, to trust. The music is colored with a blend of funk, at times almost fusion, with Havens marvelously duetting with organ and clavinet.

The start of side B “From the Prison” sees a return to more classic folk, with a riff on the low notes of the guitar, which in the lyrics expresses an invitation to all who are prisoners, metaphorically and not, to reconcile first with themselves before reconnecting with the outside world to give all the love they are capable of.

Next is the cover of Dylan's “Maggie’s Farm,” which, to be honest, makes me long for the original version by the Duluth Minstrel. In my opinion, it is the least incisive track on this record.

But with his track “Somethin' Else Again” our hero quickly redeems himself. The piece, on the notes of the sitar, tanpura, and flute, is the most imaginative of the entire album. Let us not forget to always thank Ravi Shankar and his adept George Harrison for the foresight with which they spread the “word” of Indian rhythms and melodies. Listening to this seven and a half minute piece almost feels like smelling incense and seeing “flower children” dancing along the banks of the Ganges.

“New City” (R. Havens/J. Court) is a melodic and pleasant ballad.

The traditional “Run, Shaker Life,” rearranged by Havens himself, closes this album with a rhythmic cut that makes it akin to his “Handsome Johnny.” The text is explicit: “Run, Shaker life, shake life eternal. Shake it out of me, all that is carnal.” In this “piece,” one can clearly perceive Richie's masterful guitar technique.

Havens dedicated much of his life to music, collaborating with other great musicians around the world, but also raising awareness among young people about ecological and social issues. In the '70s, he contributed to founding the Northwind Undersea Institute, which involves children in studying nature to help them directly perceive how positive changes can be made from simple gestures like planting a garden in a vacant lot, learning to take on an important direct role in environmental protection.

“Sometimes I feel like a motherless child. A long way from my home … Freedom …”.

Enjoy listening from your Dr. Jazz.