Richie Havens plays "Freedom" at Woodstock, August, 1969

I just finished reading Back To The Garden, a great history of the 1969 Woodstock Festival.  So, of course, I had to watch the movie.  There are a lot of standout and falldown performances from the festival.  His is just amazing.  He was pressed into service because he was there.  He had been scheduled to go on much later, but people couldn't get to the festival (including the performers).  So people like Havens, John Sebastian, Country Joe, and others were pressed into performing. 

Richie was the first performer, and ended up having to play several hours, instead of the expected 45 minutes,as tghey anxiously awaited the arrival of the other scheduled performers.  He played this song, Freedom, completely off the cuff.  It was all improv (because he'd run out of songs).  He folded in the old blues tune Motherless Child, and knocked it out of the park.  It made it into the movie, and gave Richie a life of gigs into the far future (up to Right Now!).


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