Richie Havens (January 21, 1941 – April 22, 2013) was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. His music encompassed elements of folk, soul, and rhythm and blues. He is best known for his intense and rhythmic guitar style (often in open tunings), soulful covers of pop and folk songs, and his opening performance at the 1969 Woodstock Festival. (More from Wikipedia)
In 1998, an organization called Native American Music Association & Awards was started in order to bring awareness of the contributions of Native Americans to music in all its forms; the Awards have been presented annually since that time. The surprise at taking even a quick glance at their “Did You Know” roster at www.nativeamericanmusicawards.com/halloffame.cfm is the incredible number of stars of popular music who have Native American blood – the tribe or confederation name(s) are given in parentheses here and elsewhere in this post: Elvis Presley (Cherokee), Jimi Hendrix (Cherokee), Hank Williams (Choctaw), Willie Nelson (Cherokee), Ritchie Valens (Yakui), Aaron Neville and the Neville Brothers (Choctaw/Cherokee), Loretta Lynn and her sister Crystal Gayle (Cherokee), Kitty Wells (Cherokee), Wayne Newton (Powhatan), Michael Jackson and the Jacksons (Choctaw/Cherokee), Link Wray (Shawnee), Richie Havens (Blackfoot), Robbie Robertson of the Band (Mohawk), Tina Turner (Navaho), Cher (Cherokee), Rita Coolidge (Cherokee), Eddie Van Halen of Van Halen (Native Hawaiian – Native Americans who are not among those often called Indians), Tori Amos (Cherokee), Toni Tennille of the Captain and Tennille (Cherokee), Billy Ray Cyrus and his daughter Miley Cyrus (Cherokee), Anthony Kiedis of Red Hot Chili Peppers (Mohican), LL Cool J (Cherokee), Beyoncé (Creole), etc.
Tommy Allsup (Cherokee) was a member of Buddy Holly’s new band in 1959; he “lost” a coin flip with Ritchie Valens and was thus not on board the airplane that crashed on the day the music died.
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Bill Miller’s big break came in 1994 when Tori Amos heard his album, The Red Road and asked him to open for her on several dates during the tour to support her album, Under the Pink. I saw him perform on that tour at one of the campuses of City University of New York (CUNY), as I recall. Bill Miller has since played with several prominent musicians such as Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, Richie Havens, the BoDeans, and Arlo Guthrie and has written songs with Nanci Griffith, Kim Carnes and bluegrass musician Peter Rowan.
(August 2013)
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Since Richie Havens was about the only musician who had arrived at the 1969 Woodstock festival before the highways became hopelessly jammed, he played for hours. As he recalls (quoting from Wikipedia): “I’d already played every song I knew and I was stalling, asking for more guitar and mic, trying to think of something else to play – and then it just came to me. . . . The establishment was foolish enough to give us all this freedom, and we used it in every way we could.”
After a remarkably quick guitar tuning, Richie Havens then improvised a song called “Freedom” that was based on the Negro spiritual “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child”. It was this performance that made it into the Woodstock movie. Bob Dylan has incorporated “Motherless Child” into his songs; Wikipedia lists dozens of others who have also recorded the song in one form or another.
(March 2015)
