RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,246
('just one happy stance')
In the very wide-ranging
flex of my life, I can pick
out any number of places
and events by which I define
the times in which they took
place. Some times they even
overlap; yet, like a stamp
collector going through his
grouped stamps, carefully
and with discrimination, each
one can stand out, even in a
'hinged,' stamp-album, row,
and I can readily identify and
assign a determination, to each.
-
In 1967, I think it was, I picked
up a record album - his first -
by a guy named Richie Havens.
Nobody very special; I'd seen
him around a little, the Village,
coffeehouses and pass the hat
joints. A black guy, with a real
gritty, rough, and sometimes
dark, voice. What caught my
attention was his guitar style.
He'd played around - a lot of
scruffy, street-corner kind of
stuff. He played in some sort
of (what was called) 'open-string
tuning.' I learned what it meant
only later, but it interested me
right away and - as he later
said - acted as a good cover
for poor guitar knowledge and
adeptness. I immediately saw
how that was what attracted me
to the sound (with his voice).
The idea of open tuning was
that he'd (he used 'E') take a
chord and make that chord
have one string, so that when
he strummed he'd get that
entire chord, with no work
or fuss; and then, as he simply
went to different frets while
playing, the next chord would
come up too. I'm not a guitar
guy, but that made sense and
he said it simplified everything,
quickly, for him, and the 'E'
matched the tenor and rough
timbre, of his voice.
-
I bought the album on a whim.
I don't recall deliberating much
about it. I'd never been one of
those 'gotta' buy this' record
people, but Richie Havens had
somehow presented himself to
me as something different and
out of the ordinary. Hos own
songs, and regular, standards
kind of stuff, done in his own
way : San Francisco Bay Blues,
and the like. He ever, weirdly,
tipped his hat and tried some
contemporary pop stuff. But,
in the same vein as Dave Van
Ronk, his combination of music
and approach, transformed
everything.
-
I was surprised, a year or two
later, when he became, by
chance, the opener at Woodstock.
He was the very first, afternoon,
act, the stage was unfinished,
and even the mics weren't working.
They used him to fill time, as the
other acts were late and held up
in the jammed-traffic situation,
and only a few, small, helicopters
were running people and equipment
in. He ended up playing so long that
he exhausted ALL of his repertoire,
and ended up ad-libbing some chords
to words he made up in the spot. It
somehow later became, recorded,
etc., the hit 'Freedom,' for him.
-
Anyway, that was just another one
of those blind occurrences that happen
to me and which leave consequences
little known. He faded for me just
that quickly; within 5 years or so
he'd somehow transformed into
some sort of space-rock, high-energy
music that I never stayed with. He
died in maybe 2012 or so, and had
been born in 1941 - representing,
essentially, another generation back
and an earlier era of what sprouted
for 'cool' in the 60's rock 'revolution.
I didn't go to 'Woodstock,' whenever
it was, though I had friends who did.
That entire scene was misplaced, for
me, and ended up being nothing I
wished to be part of. There seemed
no context; everyone was seeking
a glib happiness without a core. My
own life and views were - in that
time - too transfixed on other issues
and realities, none of which really
allowed that sort of happy-stupidity
and dumb-acceptance of everything
which the hippie rock-world had
embraced. I'd already seen too
much and fought too hard against
what I perceived as real and foul
injustice to get caught up in the
sick shadow-boxing of sex and
drugs and rock n' roll, as the
morons and the media put it.
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