Richie Havens, 1941-2013

I first encountered Richie Havens on vinyl, as did most of us out in the hinterlands. (I wouldn’t arrive in New York, his hometown, for twenty-odd more years.) His debut album MIXED BAG on Verve/Forecast was mind-blowing. It was squarely in the folk tradition, but Richie used a sexy baritone that he could squeeze up into the tortured sound of a field holler as soulful as Levi frickin Stubbs, PLUS he’d invented this percussive, lightning-fast strumming style that nobody else can get. (I know, because I’ve listened to many pretenders and even tried myself.) Roger McGuinn used to play in some of the same little Village coffeehouses when Richie was getting started. He says they used to pass the wicker basket real fast before Richie played, because by the end of his set the crowd would give him all the dough they had left.

Richie went on Carson with “Handsome Johnny” when nobody’d ever heard of him, and killed so hard that (1) the studio audience’s applause lasted right through the commercial break and into the next segment, and (2) Carson invited him back the following night, then and there. Richie opened the Woodstock festival and dutifully played his set, then was forced to keep on vamping before hundreds of thousands of people when the next scheduled acts had trouble getting to the site. That song “Freedom” that you see in the movie? Improvised on the spot for the biggest audience he’d ever seen.

He was the single finest interpreter of Dylan and the Beatles, and everybody knows it. His oddball tuning made damn near every chord a dreamy sustained holiness whenever he desired, and those gossamer tones guided you into reconsidering the guts of songs you thought you knew backward and forward. Richie casually proved you mistaken.

In late 1998, I acquired his autobiography for Avon Books. It would be one of the first releases of our new pop culture imprint, Spike. Working with Richie through his co-author Steve Davidowitz, and then directly with the man himself, was one of my most rewarding experiences in publishing. Richie Havens was the world’s last unrepentant peacenik. By that I mean he honestly believed that if we could all just sit down around a big table and talk it out, we could put an end to war. Most of us eventually “grow out” of that attitude as cynicism attaches itself like barnacles. After getting to know Richie, I say the shame’s on us.

I remember presenting his book to our sales force on the thirtieth anniversary of his Woodstock gig, to the very hour. (Trivium: the song he sang to open the festival was “Minstrel From Gault.”) He was a gracious author, lunching with key booksellers, giving us time to inscribe books and posters, hanging for longer than he needed to at the photographer’s studio for the book cover. We changed the book that day at the cover shoot. I told Richie that I’d used all kinds of contortions to try and fake the lissome chords of such tunes as “Follow.” He said, “How did it sound?” “Not good enough.” He laughed and said, “That’s because you were using the standard tuning. You were trying to do something impossible. You did good just to get close!” I said, “We have to get a new chapter in there, and show people how you tune and play!” So that’s exactly what we did. If you can find a copy of THEY CAN’T HIDE US ANYMORE (that’s what Richie thought to himself as he first surveyed the Woodstock masses), you’ll get the skinny, with photos. If you play guitar and you like Richie, it’ll save you hours of frustration. You’re welcome.

Put on MIXED BAG today – it’s never gone out of print — and it still sounds as fresh as it did in 1967. For some unexpected fun, dig up Albert Brooks’s first album, COMEDY MINUS ONE, and enjoy a tremendous sustained bit of stand-up as Albert describes opening for Richie in San Antonio. (I asked him if he’d ever heard Albert’s bit. “Of course I have! Too funny!”) Then listen to MIXED BAG once more, and do what I’ve done every couple of years since it was first released: play it again. And again. And again.

“A light went out,” people sometimes say when somebody moves away or passes. Never was that phrase more appropriate than today. As Richie used to write,

Health/Peace

A friend forever

Starspotting

We were coming back from Jamaica last December when I saw an elderly man putting his coat into the overhead bin. He looked familiar but I couldn’t quite place him. If he were a little younger, that’d be Richard Benjamin, I thought, referring to the director of one of my favorite movies, MY FAVORITE YEAR, and the star of another, WESTWORLD. The plane took off, and a little later I heard his female companion call him “Richard.” I listened carefully for his response: holy cow, it was Richard Benjamin!

In and around New York, where we were headed, it is very uncool to make a big deal over a star spot, especially if the celebrity’s trapped with you on a plane. But if you hang around here long enough, you see plenty of notables. Sometimes when there’s nobody else around, I’ll actually walk up. The year before, we noticed at customs that Timothy Hutton had come back from France on our redeye flight, and the load was very light – he might have been the only guy in first class. At the baggage carousel, I saw him sitting alone, nobody else around. I walked over, shook his hand, and told him I admired his work. He said thanks – both for the shout-out and because I immediately left him alone again – and he smiled at us as he was leaving. That’s about as intimate as it ought to get. One day David Byrne stood behind me in line at the Virgin Megastore in Times Square. I paid, turned, and said I admired his work. (I’m plumb full of admiration, children.) He said, “Thank you,” and that was it. No fuss, no muss.

Inside, understand, I’m like Chris Farley in that old SNL sketch where he hosts a talk show and is so starstruck that he can only fawn over his guests. Remember in STOP MAKING SENSE…remember when you came out with the boom box and you pushed Play? That was…AWESOME. That’s what I wanted to say. But you just have to hold it in, man.

Once I was crossing Park Avenue, and Paul Sorvino was headed the opposite way. When he got close enough to see me, I made eye contact and mimed applause, very softly. He grinned and nodded, a slight jovial bow. Perfect. He gets a little ego stroke but doesn’t even have to break stride. I’ve done that for several others, and so far I’ve gotten the identical response: thanks, and whew!

Intermission at the theater, particularly at cool downtown venues, can bring the stars out. Once we saw Keanu Reeves standing in line for a halftime nosh, all by himself, no posse. He’s strikingly handsome – you’d notice him even if he weren’t famous – but nobody bothered him. A bereted Ed Harris can walk right through a crowded lobby because he has The Stare: yep, I am indeed Ed Harris, but I’d rather we didn’t get into that right now. Joe Pantoliano was at the same show as Keanu, but you don’t wanna walk up to Joey Pants anyhow. We saw the original production of David Mamet’s SPEED-THE-PLOW with Joe Mantegna and Madonna. Steve Martin and his then-wife, Victoria Tennant, were in the audience. After the show, there was a huge crowd at the stage door, waiting to see Ms. Donna get into her limo. Meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Steve Martin and Mantegna –- the actor they’d just seen in the play — stepped out from the lobby, headed down the street the other way, and nobody even gave ‘em a glance. (Except us, of course.)

You can get noticed, though. Just after Bush v. Gore, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg walked into a theater with her husband and got an ovation, presumably for standing with the 5-4 minority. When QUEER EYE FOR THE STRAIGHT GUY was first becoming a sensation, Carson Kressley — the blond fashion expert — actually walked up and down a few rows at AVENUE Q shaking hands. Outside in Times Square there was a 100-foot poster of the Fab Five: this absurd amount of fame was still new to them.

Sidewalks are great too, but you have to be quick. Richie Havens told me that if he really needed to get somewhere in New York, he had to walk at a certain pace, never slower, or else he’d wind up talking to tons of people and be late. Even after all these years! It takes more than an instant to conclude, that’s Richie Havens!, and he’s such a sweetheart that he would just stop and chat every time. Don’t make eye contact, be gone before they can figure it out. (I edited Richie’s autobio, so he doesn’t count: meeting people at work is quite different from a random star spot.) I’ve seen Bill Paxton, Matthew Broderick, Paul Newman, Sigourney Weaver, Lorne Michaels, Carly Simon, Tony Randall, Will Ferrell, Alec Baldwin, Patrick Stewart, Katie Couric, Eric Clapton, Sylvester Stallone, Sandra Bernhard, Bob Costas, and many more that I’ve forgotten – plus, no doubt, dozens that I wasn’t even aware of! Linda used to work next door to the Russian Tea Room and has made lots of spots: I think her favorite was Sean Lennon. I went through a revolving door directly opposite Chuck Jones, the legendary Looney Tunes director, and still regret that I didn’t keep pushing my way back in to shake the great man’s hand. My favorite sidewalk-passing spot was David Patrick Kelly, who was in town for a play and for some unexpected reason was barreling down a street in my neighborhood, looking studious in glasses and keeping it straight ahead. I actually might have broken the unwritten rule and stopped him to talk if he hadn’t breezed on by a la Havens: he was the best psycho ever in THE WARRIORS, which also happened to star one of my college buddies. He might have even enjoyed the shout.

David Patrick Kelly in THE WARRIORS. Remember him now?

But the master of Upper East Side sidewalks is undoubtedly the Woodman. For 16 years, we lived quite close to him, from Mia through Soon-Yi. We’ve passed him on the sidewalk maybe four, five times. Each time, the neck-snap only shows his receding scrawny ass. Woody Allen can hunch down in a way that almost erases himself from view: his street anonymity is an art form. The last couple of times, I noticed a vaguely familiar young Asian woman. Slight pause. Soon-Yi! But by the time I’d figured it out, Woody had already passed me close enough to nudge me if he’d wanted to. I saw him clearly in my peripheral vision, but by then it was too late. He makes Ed Harris look like Captain Kangaroo: don’t even think about engaging me. We moved across Park Avenue from his haunts almost four years ago, and we haven’t seen him since. I think he might have moved away too: he shoots his pictures in Europe now.

One star spot stands out above them all for me. I was getting on a bus on Madison Avenue one afternoon, and everybody – I mean everybody, including the bus driver, who kept the door open – was looking over my left shoulder, some with mouths agape. I went in, sat down, and looked myself. Coming out of an office building, sharply dressed in a suit and flanked by two assistants, was none other than Muhammad Ali. Everybody on the bus was transfixed. Ali was instantly surrounded. Never have I seen such adoration. Slightly shaking from Parkinson’s, the Champ couldn’t sign autographs, but his helpers handed him a stack of little cards which he personally gave to everyone around (must have been something like, “I met The Greatest”). He even posed for a couple of pictures. You know that expression where he’s biting his lower lip and raising a fist to, say, Howard Cosell? He can still do that. After a long couple of minutes, the bus driver finally had to get back to work, and as we pulled away, Ali headed for his limo. How many times has this happened to him? Yet his graciousness was an example to everyone, and everyone knew it. As our bus headed uptown, a teenage kid was running alongside us at full speed, yelling to his friends on the corner ahead, almost skipping with excitement. In his flailing hand was the Champ’s card.

6/4/16: Today we received some sad news. Goodbye, Champ.