I’ve always loved Richie Havens, who was the opening act at Woodstock in 1969. According to Park Slope’s Ben Greenman in the New Yorker, he has a great new album just out called Nobody Left to Crown.

“Nobody Left to Crown” (Verve Forecast), Havens’s first recording in four years, opens with a pair of originals, “The Key” and “Say It Isn’t So,” which manage to address spiritual themes without sounding overly earnest, a trick that sometimes eluded the artist in his younger years. The centerpiece of the album is a majestic cover of “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” Over his trademark open-tuned strumming, Havens delivers a commanding vocal performance that fully restores the revolutionary impulse of The Who’s original; he somehow gets blood from a song that has been ossified for years. Nothing else quite rises to that level, though there’s an urgent version of Jackson Browne’s “Lives in the Balance” and several strong tracks in which Haven applies Eastern-style enlightenment to Realpolitik—including the quietly furious title song, which slyly quotes “Home on the Range.”

And he’s a Brooklyn boy to boot. Born in Bed-Stuy. Here will be performing on August 7 at noon. Marcus Carl Franklin, the incredible kid who played one of the Bob Dylan’s in “Im Not There” WILL BE THERE. Note to self: Don’t miss this.