 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
 |
|
||||||||||
A Conversation with Richie Havens (continued)
PM: Yeah, because when you get into that highly percussive thing, it's got to be those really big picks, doesn't it? I so rarely hear acoustic guitarists who are that great at strumming the instrument. It's like a lost art.
RH: Yes, yes.
PM: And anybody who's really great at it tends not to be a youngster.
RH: Exactly.
[laughter]
PM: Yeah. People used to strum like this. It was really cool.
RH: Yeah. It's wild, because I get a lot of kids at my shows. How I play, I put it up on my website a few years back. It has to be around four years already. Because I get a lot of young guys who say, "Man, that looks like an easy way to get to play. Would you teach me that?" [laughs] And I'd say, "If I had the time right now, I could teach you in ten minutes, but...I'll tell you, I'm working on a book." And I tried to work that book out. I got the pictures, and I wrote the thing, and I took it to my buddy. And he said, "Richie, this is going to cost you more to make than you can make on the book."
[laughter]
RH: He says, "You've got to have color pictures?" "Yeah, definitely."
PM: Of course.
RH: So when he told me that, I said, "Oh, to hell with it." I came home that day and put it right onto my website.
PM: Now, isn't there also a Homespun video about your guitar style?
RH: Yes, yes. I just did that recently. And it's good, because there are songs there that you can hear, and I sing a few songs, like maybe six songs or something like that. And some parts of that would show the basic strumming stuff, and what I do.
PM: Right.
RH: The weird part about it was that I really had to think about it. [laughs] My style actually came from two people I can say clearly that I feel were instrumental, two people created it. It was Dino Valenti and Fred Neil.
PM: Right.
RH: Freddie Neil being a chugger, when he strummed he was a chugger. He was a good strummer. But he also knew the jazzy chords.
PM: Yes. He was one of the few folkies to do jazz chords.
RH: So he was really playing guitar, and really doing something, mixing something together that wasn't mixed before.
PM: Right.
RH: And then Dino, who was also an incredible strummer, he learned Flamenco-style playing, and then played folk songs [laughs] and blues songs.
PM: Oh, so he had the whole--what they call the rasgado thing going on.
RH: Yeah, he had those fingers. He could definitely turn that thing out. So between him and Freddie, boy, that was enough for me to say, "Maybe it would be best to get a guitar and sing their songs."
[laughter]
RH: "You better do it, because that's what it's about."
PM: To many of our readers, Fred Neil may be most famous for having written "Everybody's Talkin'."
RH: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
PM: And he died some time ago, right?
RH: Yes, not too long ago.
PM: What about Dino Valenti, though, I don't remember what--
RH: He passed away as well about six years ago.
PM: Oh, my. Did he have a distinguished career? I only know that name. [After being a legendary solo in the New York coffee houses of the 60s--he wrote the classic anthem "Get Together," among others--Dino came to national prominence in the San Francisco band The Quicksilver Messenger Service.]
RH: No. You see, that's the biggest thing about him, being the biggest influence on a lot of people--both of those guys, being the biggest influences, were almost forced with ball and chain to record, because they didn't give a crap about that. They wanted to play to living people.
PM: Oh, yeah, some people are just live guys.
RH: Yeah. They didn't want to get involved with the business guys and all that. They really didn't. And I was glad that I made it to that place when that was the card of the day. Nobody wanted to. It was like we were learning from them. But we got to be the same. We didn't want to, either. It was a hassle. [laughs] And in those days, that's what we called it, anyway.
So it took years, but when Bob Dylan broke through, then it really opened the door. Because when they could play a seven minute record instead of a three minute record, it blew the minds of the radio guys that people wanted to hear it. And they thought, "Oh, God, we've got no time in between three ten minute songs to do our commercials."
[laughter]
RH: But it broke through, and because of that, many, many more of us got to record.
PM: Who is your co-producer and the drummer/percussionist on Wishing Well, Randy Crofton?
RH: I met Randy, really, as an engineer, and didn't know he was a classical percussionist. So I learned that afterwards. And as we got together and put some stuff together in terms of that, he just played on the album, a number of songs. But he's a classical percussionist, and he plays a lot on Broadway.
PM: I see.
RH: Yeah, he plays behind one of the big plays there. He actually plays every week now, two days a week, filling in for the regular guy who does it when he has a classical gig.
PM: Are you living in the city?
RH: Yeah, I have a place in the city, and a place in Jersey City where I do most of my work. It's nice and quiet. So I hide out and get done what I got to get done. A lot of it is art, and like I do all my art over here.
PM: So you're still painting a lot.
RH: Yeah, I do a lot of digital work now, digital art.
PM: Really?
RH: Yeah, I got about six or seven different things, styles, I get involved in.
PM: And can they be seen on--
RH: There's some of my art on my site, yeah--not this kind of stuff I'm working on now. But basically, there is a bit of it on there. Digital gives you the option to use watercolor or oils or actually any medium you can think of, because they got them all on there, crayons, pencils, and all kinds of stuff.
PM: So, at least in the artistic realm, you're very computer conversant?
RH: Oh, yeah. I've been doing that now for about seven years. I have a lot of stuff. I use several different programs to mix and match to get what I need out of it. One part of the art thing is using my photographs that I take all over the country, wherever I go, and working them into paintings and stuff like that. Colorizing, you can change them, you can brush stroke them yourself. So I've got one thing where I take the photograph, and I set it on another canvas with a lot of space around it, then I paint it out from the photograph. It's really interesting. continue
