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Richie Havens was just another up-and-coming folk singer from Greenwich Village, New York when he got invited to play the Woodstock Festival in 1969. One legendary three-hour opening set later, and his life was changed for good. After nearly four decades, Havens is still happy to be remembered for that career-making performance, which was captured in the 1970 Woodstock documentary. He's also content to live a low-key life in his native New York, releasing his albums independently (including his last one, Grace of the Sun) and limiting his concert appearances to weekends. But he still possesses one of the most instantly recognizable voices in music.

ARTISTdirect's Andy Hermann was fortunate enough to catch one of those concerts back in August, when Havens visited Los Angeles and played a set at the legendary Troubadour club. Later, he caught up with Havens by telephone to ask the folk icon about his performance, his storied career, and the legacy of that Woodstock generation.

AD: I have to confess, I hadn't had a chance to hear your new album, so I didn't realize until I saw your show at the Troubadour that you do "All Along the Watchtower" and "Woodstock." Was that the first time that you recorded covers of those two songs?

RH: Interestingly enough, it was the first time I covered "Woodstock," after all these years. The other song, "Watchtower," I've sung for years and years -- since the '60s. And everybody really is attached to that song. I did record it live once, in 1970, but that record is off the market, so to speak. [i.e. out of print] So I recorded it again just for all those people who always ask for it. But the "Woodstock" song was really strange, because I came into the studio in making that album [Grace of the Sun] -- I had my list of songs already and we were going over them and getting ready to start recording them. And three days in a row I walked into the building and heard Crosby, Still and Nash in my brain.

Singing "Woodstock"?

[laughs] Yeah. A certain passage, too, that they do [so well] because of the harmony they have. And I said, "Why am I thinking about that song?" You know, I love the song, I love their version of it, I love Joni's version of it. So I was an audience on that one. So I finally said, "Holy smokes. Does that mean I actually to record it this time? This is what this means -- hearing it over and over?" [laughs] So I called Walter and said, "Walter, let's sit down and figure out these chords to this song" -- which didn't take us very long to do. After we did that, the next day, I got the cello player and all of us in the studio. We all played it at the same time, which is the way I like to do things.

So when you record, it's live in the studio?

It's a performance of everyone, yeah. I started out that way and I still love what that sounds like. And I still record in analog.

So it really wasn't a conscious decision in a way to record "Woodstock."

[laughs] No, it wasn't a conscious decision. That happens to me. Sometimes, I get into the middle of the album and something will just pop into my mind. And I'll think, "This song is for the next slot, that's what it is." It's amazing, because there are songs I tried to sing years ago and I just couldn't feel them. They got to me, but I couldn't get to them.

You mentioned your guitarist earlier, Walter Parks. Is he a partner to you in writing and arranging?

Not really. He's actually an accompanist. You know, Walter and the cello player -- Stephanie Winters -- they both had their own duet at one time. And I used to run into them on the road, and I said to myself, "Man, these two people are so incredible together." Well, years later they went their own ways and were doing their own particular types of concerts, and Walter ended up putting a band together, which he still has. And I'm fortunate enough to have him go out on weekends with me and do his band work during the week -- which I think helps the other guys too, in a way. He came in on the Wishing Well album, and we had played a little before that -- almost eight, nine months, I think.

Were he and Stephanie pretty familiar with your work?

Not really. Walter was familiar with it, but he never thought he'd be playing with me. But I mean, when we first sat down and played a song, it was evident to me that he was a feeler. He felt from me -- from what I'm playing and what I'm singing. He's a master accompanist, that's what I would call him. And so is she. It's interesting, I never really tell people what to play, or how to play it. But I have to tell you, I think me and Walter rehearsed for about two days before we went on the road. And we're just out there ever since. It's been about four and a half years, I think.

So you really trusted him right from the start.

Oh yes. You know, the people I've been to fortunate to have -- well, the original guy, Paul Williams, he was with me since he was 14 years old. He's in the Woodstock movie, he's the guy with the cap on. And we sang harmony in those days. He didn't play any instrument. He had a couple of little maracas that he used to use. [laughs] And one days he walks in and says, "Well, I'm the guitar player now." And he had a guitar. And I say, "Really?" So he pulled it out. He knew the songs. And he could hear very well. He, like me -- we inherited hearing music well. We sang doo-wop -- well, he didn't, but his younger brother was in a little doo-wop band that I put together with all these kids on the street. That's what I came up singing in the '50s. So that kind of paved the way for me, because when I play, I tune to a chord -- I call it my six guys.

And so Walter was a feeler, Paul was a feeler -- they just felt it. And they accompanied whatever came out of me. So that's how it happened. And we have fun, we really do have fun learning the songs.

So when, for example, you play a request -- like when I saw you, you played "Follow" --

Well, I tried. [laughs] I think I screwed up one verse at the end.

Well, it sounded great to me. But had you ever rehearsed or played that song together?

We probably played it together about two and a half years ago. Because it comes in and out. What happens to me is, I know the first and last song I'm gonna sing when I get onstage. Everything that happens in between, happens because of the audience. Freddy Neil, a wonderful singer-songwriter who was one of my mentors in the Village early on, said to me, "You just gotta know two things, Richie -- how to get on, and how to get off." [laughs] Just know what song you're gonna open with and know what song you're gonna close with. The rest all just happens.

And that's the way I've been. I don't ever write any sets down -- it happens. And it's interesting because each different place pulls something else out. I got about maybe 40 songs that I go in and out of, that people conjure up just by their applause. I call it breathing. I walk out onstage, they applaud, and [that's] them exhaling. And I sit down and I sing a song, and I exhale. And they inhale. And then they exhale. And then I get another song in mind. And so I sing that. And they exhale. [laughs] That's the way it works.

You've been doing this for so long now -- your ability to read an audience has got to be very keen compared to what it was when you were first starting out.

Well, you know, it isn't really any different, because you know what? I grew up in Brooklyn with people in my life who probably came from every country in the world. We all grew up together. All the doo-wop bands I was with were mixed in many different ways, in different configurations -- and you know, some guy would move out and we'd have to find another second tenor. But to me, I think I've been blessed with this -- not just a feeling, but the conclusion that I know everybody else already. I know who people are, 'cause I'm one of them. A lot of times I just say, "Hey, I'm an audience, [too]." For myself, even. I blow my own mind when songs pop out of my mouth. [laughs]

I remember being in the Midwest early on, and I'm sitting in this place and I'm singing songs -- and I actually sang five Bob Dylan songs in a row. And I'm going, "Wow, where the hell am I? They drew that out of me?" It was just wild, you know? 'Cause one [song] comes out and it's like I'm an audience for it, too. It's doing it to me as well as everybody else. So it's still fun. I find out a lot about places where I play just by what comes out.

And mostly, when you go out on the road these days, you just play weekends?

Yes.

Do you ever play weekday shows anymore?

Not really. Every once in awhile a weekday will come in and I'll actually do it, if it's a Thursday and everything's connected the right way. I would say maybe ten percent of the whole thing is weekdays.

So what do you do with the rest of your weekdays? Are you semi-retired at this point?

No, that's a word I don't even acknowledge -- in the sense that, people say, "When are you gonna retire?" I say, "Listen, I haven't gotten tired the first time, so how can I re-tire the second time?" [laughs] Re-tire? What does that mean? Get tired again? No, no, no. Not me.

No, it was really, purely, because [in the '70s] I was out five days a week, flying all over the place. And I was lucky in that in those days, you'd spend a weekend at a coffeehouse or a week in another kind of club. So it was always five days a week, sometimes six. And I was having too much fun. I was loving it too hard. [laughs] It was great. I never thought in my lifetime I'd travel the way I got to do it then. We wanted to sing for people, but I never thought that would be the way that I would end up doing it.

So on weekdays, I have a lot of art stuff going on now. I paint and sculpt some. I'm in the throes of some digital art these days and people are freaking out all over me. I've had a couple of shows -- [but] I didn't really paint to show people. I painted to come down after being so pushed up in energy coming from a gig and not being able to sleep. You know, just filled with energy. I use that time when it happens, and I paint, or sculpt. But this computer thing is another world. Another world. I do some abstract, some sort of fingerpainting, in a way. And manipulating photographs.

Some of your albums feature your art, don't they?

Yeah, there was one, where I actually put an envelope with ten drawings and a poem and I made the record company pay for it. [laughs] I wrote a poem -- actually, what happened was, I wrote ten poems, short poems, that went with each picture. They were sort of ink line drawings done with black ink -- that kind of thing. So I did these pictures and then I tried to write a poem for each one. And when I got finished with doing that, the most amazing thing is that somebody pointed out to me -- they said, "Did you ever write this out as a whole? It's a great poem." I'm going, "What is he talking about?" I hadn't even thought about it. I went back and read them all in a row and it just completely blew my mind. They really related to one another. See, I even have to "get" myself. [laughs] I have to discover what I've actually done.

Oddly enough, Woodstock was the same thing. Doing "Motherless Child" and then that "Freedom" thing at the end was something that I didn't plan to do at all. It was just because I was up there so darn long, I sang every song I knew. Believe it or not, I had to go see the movie to see what I had done.

Really?

No kidding. And I'll tell you, they didn't have television recording back then. Every television thing I had ever done was live. So I'd never seen myself till this movie. And I'm [watching myself] going, "Get the hell out of here." I didn't know what I was doing, and that was nine years into doing it.

Do you do "Freedom" and "Motherless Child" as part of all your sets?

Oh, every day since. Every working day since. There was only one college in the middle '70s that I had sort of ran over time and I didn't sing it. And I came off the stage and we were packing up. We pack the stuff out and open the door and there's 400 people waiting there going, "You didn't sing 'Freedom'!" So I pulled out my guitar and we sang it in the parking lot. [laughs]

Well, this far into your career, you're covering Joni Mitchell's "Woodstock" -- so I take it that the Woodstock legacy is not something that you shy away from.

No, not at all. It was truly history. There were some performers there who didn't see it that way. But just the mere audience level, and who they were, basically created, as far as I'm concerned, the beginning of our global consciousness and world awareness.

So are you still an optimist as far as that goes? Do you feel like that "Woodstock" spirit still exists in the world?

That's a good question. I would say that I'm a realist, and only because I get to see it everywhere. It is happening. Matter of fact, a large part of it is happening in the guise of [those] under four feet tall. They chase me in packs at the festivals. These little guys. "Awesome, man! I like the way you play guitar! Wow! Far out!" They even use that [phrase] a couple of times.

I thought one of the funniest observations you made at the show was about how the aliens are already here, but they're come from within, not from without -- that our kids are something completely different.

Absolutely. And they're here to straighten everything out.

Richie Havens' latest album, Grace of the Sun, is available now in the ARTISTdirect Store.