Richie Havens

[Brian Moore]

Some of you are undoubtedly aware that Richie Havens passed away last week. I found this link on NPR this morning and thought I'd share it.


Richie Havens On Mountain Stage : NPR

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Who can forget his cries of "Freedom!" that kicked off Woodstock?

 

[Brian Moore]

I watched him in a video a while back, Rob. He used his thumb to fret the strings. I don't mean just the bass strings, I mean all six--the entire fret, up and down the fretboard. I suppose he had tuned the guitar in some special fashion.

 

[Nihat Iyriboz]

Than you for sharing, Brian! Such an amazing, spirited voice!

 

[Pete Askew]

Thanks Brian. I listened more out of respect as I was never a big fan but he was certainly a kew figure in 'contemporary' music.

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Probably Open D tuning - you tune the strings to a major chord, then every time you got to a new fret with a straight finger, thumb, or bottleneck, you get another major chord. It makes some things easier, some things harder. "Big Yellow Taxi" by Joni is also in Open D. It was popular around that period.

 

[Brian Moore]

Who can forget his cries of "Freedom!" that kicked off Woodstock?

The story goes that the acts that were to follow him were stuck in traffic. He was asked to keep playing. He ran out of stuff after a while, but kept playing anyway, ad libing---don't know what you call the equivalent in music.

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Ad lib will do. Didn't know that story. He certainly gave it 100%!