Someone told me that Richie Havens will be at Celebrate Brooklyn tonight. He’s a real hero of mine though I haven’t lisented to him in years. In fact, I am trying to remember the song that he sang at Woodstock. It was incredible. What was it???

Okay, I foudn his bio on the Richie Haven’s website. The song was "Freedom" but he also did a mean version of "Just like a Woman." Here’s an excerpt from the bio on his website. He was born in Bed Stuy, the oldest of nine kids.

At the age of 20, Richie left Brooklyn to seek out the
artistic stimulation of Greenwich Village. "I saw the Village as a
place to escape to in order to express yourself", he recalls. "I had
first gone there during the beatnik days of the 1950’s to perform
poetry, then I drew portraits for 2 years and stayed up all night
listening to folk music in the clubs. It took awhile before I thought
of picking up a guitar". Nina Simone was a key vocal influence early
on, and Fred Neil and Dino Valenti were among the folksingers who had
an impact on Richie during this period.

Richie’s
reputation as a solo performer soon spread beyond the Village folk
circles. He recorded two albums worth of demos for Douglas
International in 1965 and ’66, though none of the tracks were released
until his first two albums caused a stir. After joining forces with
legendary manager Albert Grossman, Richie landed his first record deal
with the Verve label, which released Mixed Bag

Something Else Again (1968) became Richie’s first album to hit the Billboard chart, and also pulled Mixed Bag
onto the charts. That same year, Douglas International added
(unapproved) instrumental tracks to his old demos and released two
albums, Richie Havens’ Record and Electric Havens. Less than a year later, Richie’s first coproduction, the two-disc Richard P. Havens, 1983

It was, in fact, as a live performer that Richie first earned
widespread notice. By decade’s end, he was in great demand in colleges
across the country, as well as on the international folk and pop
festival circuit. Richie played the 1966 Newport Folk Festival, the
1967 Monterey Jazz Festival, the 1968 Miami Pop Festival, the 1969
Woodstock Festival, the 1969 Isle of Wight Festival, and the first
Glastonbury Festival in 1970.

Richie’s Woodstock appearance proved to be a major turning point in his
career. As the festival’s first performer, he held the crowd spellbound
for nearly three hours, called back for encore after encore. Having run
out of tunes, he improvised a song based on the old spiritual
"Motherless Child" that became "Freedom", a song now considered to be
the anthem of a generation. The subsequent movie release helped Richie
reach a worldwide audience of millions.

He’ll be at Celebrate Brooklyn Friday night.