My friend Alex sent me an email titled “We Lost A Legend” regarding Richie Havens. It deserves to be shared…
…Richie Havens passed on today. I got to see Richie play about 18 years ago with about 100 other lucky folks at McCabe’s Guitar shop in Santa Monica. He was a real cool dude. He was a big guy with these tremendous hands that could wrap fully around the neck of the guitar. He played these crazy open tunings so he would just throw his thumb around the top of the neck and clamp it down like a movable capo. He voiced boomed when he spoke and he would take time between songs to tell these great stories of the people he had met and the places he had seen traveling around the world playing music. He was a musical messenger and he could really lock you into something special. Watching him strum that night I knew that this man was dialed into the cosmic groove. His playing was pure soul. After that night I came home and wore this song out….
R.I.P.