Richie Havens preview

Richie Havens
Beverly Center, Chicago
Saturday, September 6, 2008

If there is a God and he’s male, he probably speaks English like James Earl Jones. And when he sings? The heavens thunder like Richie Havens.

Bob Dylan eventually brought the world around to his own voice, though in the ’60s, with Havens, Joan Baez, Nina Simone, and The Byrds on hand, he really didn’t need to. Folk is increasingly less-voice and more-speaker because of Dylan’s self-determination, which is sad. Steve Earle and Billy Bragg can research Woody Guthrie ’til their eyes fall out, but Havens? He’s to “Just Like A Woman” what Jimi Hendrix is to “All Along The Watchtower.” If Evangelical Christians were to bring Havens on a national prayer-in-school tour, the American Civil Liberties Union might change their tune.

So it’s striking that more than half of the new Nobody Left To Crown (Verve Forecast) is credited to the performer. Not that he’s inviting criticism, but his skill is adding gravity where plain words don’t do enough. Whether sifting through the “B” file (Citizen Cope, ’80s Jackson Browne) or piling through a classic (“Won’t Get Fooled Again”), he fixes his gaze and devours the track. On his own material, Havens plays to his vocal strength and demands great responsibility from the powerful (“Fates”) and powerless (title track) in the quest to make things right (everything else). And you break, just like a little girl.

Havens also appears at the Border’s Books & Music in Oak Brook Shopping Center at 2 p.m.

— Steve Forstneger

Category: Stage Buzz, Weekly