Richie Havens Richard Pierce "Richie" Havens (January 21, 1941 — April 22, 2013) was an American folk singer and guitarist. 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. Early life Born in Brooklyn, Havens was the eldest of nine children. At an early age, he began organizing his neighborhood friends into street corner doo-wop groups and was performing with The McCrea Gospel Singers at 16. Early career At age 20, Havens left Brooklyn, seeking artistic stimulation in Greenwich Village. "I saw the Village as a place to escape to, in order to express yourself," he recalled. "I had first gone there during the Beatnik days of the 1950s to perform poetry, then I drew portraits for two years and stayed up all night listening to folk music in the clubs. It took a while before I thought of picking up a guitar." Havens' reputation as a solo performer soon spread beyond the Village folk circles. After cutting two records for Douglas Records, Havens signed on with Bob Dylan's manager Albert Grossman, and landed a record deal with the Verve Forecast label. Verve released Mixed Bag in 1967, which featured tracks like "Handsome Johnny" (co-written by Havens and future Oscar- winning actor Louis Gossett Jr.), "Follow", and a cover of Bob Dylan's "Just Like a Woman". Pre-Woodstock rise By 1969, Havens had released five more albums. Something Else Again (1968) became his first album to hit the Billboard chart and also pulled Mixed Bag back onto the charts. Two of those albums were unauthorized "exploitation albums" released by Douglas Records (or Douglas International: Electric Havens (released June 01, 1968) and Richie Havens Record (1969): This [Electric Havens] was one of two albums (the other being The Richie Havens Record) comprised of overdubbed solo demos, probably from sometime between 1963-1965, that Havens had done