Richie Havens

Music is the major form of communication. It's the commonest vibration, the people's news broadcast, especially for kids.

— Richie Havens

Everything I want to do, and to accomplish, is on the other side of the universe. That's peace of mind, energy, freedom.…

— Richie Havens

Richie is the only one of my nine who's really moved away. I can't get rid of most of them.

— Richie Havens

I must have played every college and university at least three times, and that goes for most of the clubs. I'd be…

— Richie Havens

Woodstock was both a peaceful protest and a global celebration.

— Richie Havens

I believe I inherited my sense of music from my father. My father was an ear piano player; he could just hear…

— Richie Havens

I don't get sick. I can't afford to get sick.

— Richie Havens

You can't even kill yourself if it isn't your time to go. People have no control whatsoever over what happens to them,…

— Richie Havens

I believe we have a double in every country. There's something about that that is probably a commonness that we don't make…

— Richie Havens

I saw the Village as a place you could escape to, to express yourself. When I first went there, I wrote and…

— Richie Havens

Woodstock happened in August 1969, long before the Internet and mobile phones made it possible to communicate instantly with anyone, anywhere. It…

— Richie Havens

I really sing songs that move me. I'm not in show business. I'm in the communications business. That's what it's for me.

— Richie Havens

I'm not in show business; I'm in the communications business. That's what it's about for me.

— Richie Havens

I remember the first time I was booked into a jazz club. I was scared to death. I'm not a jazz artist.…

— Richie Havens

I started out by myself, but it eventually turned into a trio by the mid-'60s - a conga drum and another guitarist.…

— Richie Havens

I actually grew up with people from all over the world. There wasn't enough of a difference to feel different from anybody…

— Richie Havens

I tended to listen to doo-wop, but my grandmother would always have the radio on all day and she'd start with Yiddish…

— Richie Havens

When I write a song today, basically it goes on the stage tomorrow. That's the way it works. You cannont interrupt your…

— Richie Havens

Woodstock was not about sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It was about spirituality, about love, about sharing, about helping each other,…

— Richie Havens

Many times, people have come up to me after singing some songs, and they'd say, 'Richie, do you know what you did?'…

— Richie Havens

The direction for my music is heaven, of course. We gear all things to the realm of heaven - which is the…

— Richie Havens

Though it's frequently portrayed as this crazy, unbridled festival of rain-soaked, stoned hippies dancing in the mud, Woodstock was obviously much more…

— Richie Havens

My right wrist is connected to the left foot. You know, if the left foot doesn't work, the right wrist doesn't work,…

— Richie Havens

My mother's family came from the British West Indies. And my father's family came from, well, my father's father came from the…

— Richie Havens

I came up in Brooklyn singing doo-wop music from the time I was 13 to the time I was 20. That music…

— Richie Havens