REMEMBERING RICHIE:
You may have thought it odd I didn’t comment on the passing of
my musical hero Richie Havens last week. Hit me so hard, dropped
in conversation in the middle of an interview at BBC Radio 4 it
was like a bad edit…’did I just hear what I thought I heard?!’.
He was the first guitarist whose style imprinted on me, the
infectious, uplifting energy of his rhythm playing got into my
blood as a young boy – maybe the first of a series of powerful
imprints I soaked up. Practising in my bedroom without a clue
how to do anything I recalled his polyrhythmic changes in
direction as he strummed with such passion that it seemed his
life depended on it & that too impressed me – he was the real
deal. His walk on at Woodstock, playing even before the vast
crowd could hear him & leaving the same way was another lesson
from the master, the message?, ‘you’re not doing this to be
famous, you’re doing it because it’s vibrating in your bones &
has to get out into the world’.
Our meeting years later in a Bologna dressing room beneath the
town hall was (thankfully) too much of a surprise for me to make
a fool of myself in front of him & say anything but,
“Thankyou Mr Havens” as he extended a giant gentle hand &
shook my tiny trembling offering. I’ll not forget the light in
his eyes, nor the passion of his rhythms.
(K)
Karl Hyde 
Woodstock was my first brush with Richie as well…I’s see him with Groove Armada and think he was one of those people that was going to be eternal. Such freedom in his voice and spirit. Hit me hard too, don’t know why.