Songs

R.I.P. Richie Havens

73 Comments

My favorite quote from the late Richie Havens appeared in his New York Times obituary – “I’m not in show business,” he said. “I’m in the communications business.”

Havens was a spectacular communicator, famous for improvising his way through a longer-than-expected set at the opening of Woodstock because he was already at the gig, waiting to go on fifth, and the musicians scheduled to appear ahead of him were stuck in traffic.

Maybe Richie Havens would have become famous anyway, but he got a boost from a simple matter of timing. I guess it proves you’ll never regret showing up early for an important appointment.

Here’s a song that didn’t make the cut of the video version of Woodstock, but it spoke (and speaks) eloquently to the point the anti-war protesters were trying to make in 1969.

When have you been on time when the others were not?

73 thoughts on “R.I.P. Richie Havens”

  1. i have learned that the difference between being 10 minutes early and being 10 minutes late is a lot more than the 20 minutes it appears to be on the clock face. that doesnt mean i am 10 minutes early for everywhere but i am aware of it. i try to get to concerts and shows early and enjoy the people watching. i try to be aware of the traffic at different times and factor that in plus a couple of minutes to be sure of proper eta
    i used to laugh at how stupid it was that i was going to a massage appointment but that i waited to leave my computer until the last minute and got caught in traffic making me 15 minutes late for a 60 minute appointment and my shoulders were so tight from trying to get there i was lucky if i had been able to relax to the point of pre driving to the appointment by the time it was finished.
    its nice with all the gizmos in our lives today that if you get somewhere early there is always something to do. computer on the hip, i phone in the pocket. who needs an office.
    i went to the jungle theater a couple of years ago on opening night of the play scheduled for the seaon ticket thing i subscribed to. i went in and sat down and was surprised that i was the only one in the theater. bain boelke the director of the play and big cheese at the jungle came in and apologized and wondered why we had not been informed the play had been pushed back a week to let the actors have more time to get the play right.it turned out i didnt give them the right number when i signed up and so bain said to come and sit next to him and we could discuss some of the issues he was dealing with about getting this play on the right track. it was a memorable night . i learned what the fine tuning he felt was needed was and how he went about tweaking the process to get it on the proper level.
    i also remember the times the other way around when i have been scrambling to get to the airport on time. i was heading off to montana on a winter break to decmpress and i got to the airport way later than i anticpated. the gat was at the far end of an unexpected wing of the airport and by the time i got there the plane was backing out of the gate. i wailed and swung my arms and stood there looking out at the plane and begged in large pantomime movements to implore the captain to please come back in and let me board. the gate person told me they have the right to leave 10 minutes before the stated time and i was out of luck. i understood but implored just a bit more and to our surprise the captain pulled the plane back in and let me board. the other passengers on the plabne wondered what the hell that was all about. pulling back in for one scruffy traveler with an oversized piece of carry on. i snugged into my seat and arrived in bozeman 2 hours later and did my unwind from that moment until it was time to re enter the rat race a week or two later.

    Like

    Reply

  2. Good morning. I try to be on time. I’m usually not there very much ahead of time like some people from my parents generation who always arrived early. In the busy world we seem to live in today many people frequently arrive late for meetings and other events.

    When I was in charge of setting up board meetings for our local sustainable Farming chapter, I was usually the first one to show up for the meetings and many people arrived late. Now I have stepped back to let others run the board meetings and only attend them as a past board member.
    I have been very surprised to find that if I get to these meetings just before starting time, several people are already there. Why did they usually arrive late when I was the one organizing the meeting?

    Like

    Reply

      1. Maybe my timing on arriving for those board meetings is like a lot of other situations in my life where I seem to be frequently out of sync. with other people. When I am early no one else is there and when I am not early, every one is already there.

        Like

        Reply

  4. We used to joke that we had to tell my grandmother that any event she was going to started 15 minutes later than it actually did so she would only be 5-10 minutes early. I have learned from her and have a hard time not being early for cultural events, weddings, etc. (Husband has finally learned that for some events I will feel tense and irritable about being “late” if we are less than 15 minutes early – irrational though that may be). My daughter on the other hand has been late since she came into the world (she was overdue by a week, and then took almost a full 2 days to make her appearance once she announced her imminent arrival…) – my grandmother would be so disappointed.

    Like

    Reply

    2. We did just the opposite with my mother; always told her something started 30 minutes earlier than the actual time so she would get there before it was over. To make up for it though, she always stayed until the “last dog was hung.” and the last dish was washed. (I think I’ve shared this before, sorry for the redundancy.)

      My oldest daughter was born 3 weeks late and from that day on, was always slow to change the status quo. Clung to the familiar. Daughter #2 was born promptly on her due date and has been punctual ever since and never reluctant to move on to the next adventure. Just sayin’. . .

      Like

      Reply

    3. My middle daughter was 11 days late, but she arrived a little faster than your daughter, Anna. Three hours. And that’s how she is…she does things on her own time, but once she starts, she’s in a hurry to get where she’s going.

      Like

      Reply

      2. It is a good thing to be on time. One of Kathe’s brothers married a woman who was late, late, late. I once calculated that that family was reliably an hour late for any dinner date. Anyone who has cooked for company will sympathize with the plight of a cook who thinks guests will be an hour late. That family was so late that it began to get on my nerves. I began to show my contempt by being naked, stepping into the shower, when they were due (knowing full well that I had an hour to get dressed). Had that family ever been on time it would have produced a story worth telling for years, but that never happened.

        Like

        Reply

        1. i almost always get naked when stepping into the shower but… the accidental tourist by ann tyler later a move with william hurt and good cheekbones woman married to jeff goldblum . had a couple of tips for traveling lite. wear charcoal gray wash and wear pants and a shirt with a pattern that will hide food spills then at the end of the day when taking your evenig shower go in fully dressed and wah the clothes on you in the shower arm pits and collar first then ketchup spills and on to the pant peeling off one layer of clothes att a time as you go fininshing with you underwar and socks. leave them on hngers and wear the ones you did the night before for your day tomorrow giving todays time to drip dry in reparation for their turn in the rotation the following day. only need two outfits and it really helps with socks and underear vs bringing 14 pairs for a two week trip or paying for laundry at the hotel to do sox and underwear. you ever see how much they charge to launder your sox and underwear? you may as well buy new and throw it away.

          Like

        3. We are getting OT with the clothes topic, but I can’t resists telling this story. I was told about a guy who didn’t bother to wash clothes because when his got dirty he just threw them away and put on a new set that he had bought for pennies at a garage sale. He did his shopping at those sales late in the day when he could buy left over items for next to nothing.

          Like

    2. i am regularly late for my card game on the first thursday of every month in my garage. if you need me to be present in order to set up a card table drink beer talk smart and smoke cigars you dont belong at my card game

      Like

      Reply

  6. I’ve always been intrigued by the timing paradox. If you leave 10 minutes before you need to be someplace, then you’ll be 5 minutes late. If you leave 15 minutes before you need to be there, you’ll be 5 minutes early. Since I can’t figure it out, that leaves me in the always 5-10 minutes early camp. I’m sure Einstein could explain it to me if he were still around….

    Like

    Reply

    1. You don’t need Einstein, vs. Just study enough Roadrunner cartoons and you will come to learn that time is a squishy, plastic thing. Time moves fast or slow depending on your mental state. If you have run off a cliff you will find it takes a long time to drop all the way to the canyon floor because you go into a mental state of dread that slows time.

      Like

      Reply

  7. i used to go to trade shows in chicago and stay out by ohare. if you left at 5 30am you would get downtown by 615. if you left at 630 you would get downtown 830 or 9 and have a hard time finding parking. i loved people watching early in the day and getting all my ducks in a row.
    i go to breakfast meetings these days and always get there early to shoot the breeze before the official start. some of the best stuff happens before and after the event.

    first summer out of high school i got a job with a construction company picking limestone to rebuild fort snelling. the job started at 730. i got there every day at 730 and did a good hard days work. about the 3rd day the forman came up and asked me not to be late in the morning anymore. i told him i thought i was here right on time for our 730 start and old stan in his tick norveegin accent say ya but yooo need to come to coffee to start the day. vee got to tk bout vat ve are going to be dooing all day. bring in your termus and tak in de mornig fer 15 minutes. it vat ve doo.
    it vas often de best part of de day

    Like

    Reply

  8. I remember the first time I heard Richie Havens, San Francisco summer of 1969. Sigh… I got introduced to a lot of good music that year.

    I’m usually early when I have to teach something, and am always surprised to see how many people show up early, and how many are late. If I’m going to what I know will be a boring meeting, I try to come a little late. If I’m going somewhere for the first time, I try to give myself extra time, and then bring a book in case I get there TOO early.

    Like

    Reply

  9. Just about always late (just a little, usually). I underestimate how long it’s going to take to get somewhere and I find silly little things to do just as I’m going out the door (“oh, where’s that thing I want to drop off?”, “did I remember to take my vitamins?”, “might as well take out the garbage/compost on the way”, etc.)
    I don’t know quite what to do with myself if I’m early (I need to take a tip from tim).
    Another problem is that I know it takes about 20 minutes to get to St Paul, for example, but forget that I have to park/walk.

    Like

    Reply

  10. Morning–

    It’s an interesting swing in topics this morning. “Good cheek bones woman” made me laugh. And clothing and time and music and coffee before work– all fun topics.
    Our townboard takes a day in the spring to drive around and check on all the roads, culverts, ditches and whatever other road issues might have come up. It used to start with breakfast at a local diner at 7AM, drive 2/3rds of the roads by lunch time and back to the same diner for lunch, then out to finish the inspection. Now we all have other things to do; rush through the road inspection between 8 and 12 and we all run off to do our other jobs or seemingly important work.
    Meh…. not sure it’s a ‘quality of life’ improvement.
    I’ve had a few jobs where being there at the appointed time is late, being there 15 minutes early is on time.

    Sun is shining! And I didn’t fall down in the mud this morning!

    Like

    Reply

  11. i paid my ode to richie two nights ago when i read form pjs offering that richie had died. i felt like i had been punched in the stomach. i had some good stories about remembering him at a concert in the early 70’s down at the depot (first avenue today) and a story about how he lost all his teeth running across the roof tops of his manhatten neighborhood when he was a young man. i would guess he was being pursued but he was running and ran into a metal clothesline strung across at mouth level and lost em all in one fell swoop. if you look at his early stuff and listen you can hear the distinctive s sound. he got teeth later in life and they look nice and the reintroduction of a more typical s didnt mess up his sound. ill bet not many besides me and richie noticed. he was mad as a wet hen at the notion that anyone would bootleg his stuff. i had just come from musicland where they had two marvelous bootlegs in white album sleeves with richie havens written on it in sharpie. the quality of the recording was poor but much more pleasing sound than some if his over orchestrated stuff the lable was putting out on his behalf at that time. they really got carried away. he is better with a backup guitar and congos that with cello and violins in the background.
    i saw him at the guthrie about 10 years ago and it was wonderful to see the same warm laid back gentle man i remembered from our youths.
    remember “the best part of waking up is folgers in your cup”? i wondered for years if that was him. it sure sounded like him
    it was.
    rip richie.
    thank you

    Like

    Reply

      1. yep
        very nice.
        there is posting on cliff eberharts facebook page that says richie was singing cliffs song when he died. he and cliff recorded it as a duet.
        nice tune

        Like

        Reply

  12. Sometimes just showing up has its rewards. Daughter’s best friend is Freshman voice major at her college and was cast in the chorus for the Spring production of The Magic Flute. Freshmen never get leading roles, I am told. Her mother made sure that friend always made it back to Fargo for rehearsals if she had been home for the weekend or school breaks, and she never missed a rehearsal. The first performance is this Friday. Last week, the upperclasswoman who had the role of Pappagena just up and quit, and the role was given to best friend. We are so proud of her. Since she was at every rehearsal and had sang the famous duet with Pappageno last year in high school for State solo and ensemble, she was a shoe-in for the part..

    Like

    Reply

    1. As Woody Allen once said: “Eighty percent of success is showing up,” and he ought to know. Don’t know why so many people don’t get that.

      Like

      Reply

  13. This is strangely on topic, I think. Are pepper seeds slower at germinating than other veggies? We started tomatoes, eggplants, and chili peppers indoors this year, and the tomatoes and eggplants have germinated but not the peppers. Any advice, gardening Baboons? When might the peppers show arrive?

    Like

    Reply

    2. Yes, apparently peppers are slow to germinate and slow to grow. Advice gleaned from a quick look online is to soak them before putting them in whatever growth medium you’re using. Bottom heat, like a mat, is supposed to help, too. Two years ago, my poor bell pepper plant ended up with one teeny-tiny pepper on it, while the tomatoes were going insane. I just found out I can have a plot in that same community garden, so I’ll be giving it another try this year. We’ll have to compare notes!

      Like

      Reply

      2. If you’re just starting peppers, it might be too late for them to do much of anything. It can take incredibly long for them to germinate and emerge. I gave up starting my own pepper seeds and if I grow peppers, I buy plants that are already started. But IF I was going to start my own pepper plants, I would start them in February (assuming I lived in MN) and use bottom heat and/or soak the seeds.

        Like

        Reply

        2. Well, hopefully with Crow Girl’s tips on how to speed germination, you will see those seeds sprouting sooner rather than later!

          Like

        3. I figure they have 7 more weeks until planting time, so if they are starting to germinate now, we may make it. We have them under grow lights in a warm room.

          Like

        4. Peppers do take more time to get going than is the case for tomatoes. However, I usually wait a week or two after I have set out my tomatoes to put out my pepper plants so I start the peppers and the tomatoes at about the same time, usually in the third week of March here in Southern Minnesota near the Iowa boarder. I usually get plenty of peppers and the peppers usually are set out at the end of May or the start of June. I think I would need to get my peppers going a little earlier if I wanted to grow varieties that need more time to mature. I think the ones I grow are early or fairly early maturing.

          Like

    3. I just read that planting in hay bales gives you a ten-day head start. I’m not a gardener, but if I were, planting in bales would appeal to me.

      Like

      Reply

      1. Only if you’ve gotten around to getting your bales started. I just haven’t had the heart w/ the snowing. On my to-do list for Saturday!

        Like

        Reply

        2. I planted plants. There is a two-week, breaking in routine though… you have to get the bale to start breaking down internally. Watering twice a day and then a few days of fertilizer, although I’ve read a couple of online pieces for folks who don’t want to use the fertilizer in the preparation stage — just takes a big longer before the bales are ready.

          I’m starting my two-week prep on Saturday… we’ll see if the weather is consistent enough in two weeks to put the plants into the bales.

          Like

        4. Thanks, Edith, that’s great information. I’ll try to make it. (My schedule at the moment is a little goofy.)

          Like

        6. Until yesterday, I was. I’m dog sitting for a friend who had brain surgery this morning to repair an aneurism, and I’m also chicken sitting for my neighbor down the street. Martha, our cat, isn’t happy about this arrangement, so I don’t dare leave her alone with Bella. It’s cramping my style a bit.

          Like

    4. I think generally peppers are slower than tomatoes and some other things. With things that are slow to germinate be careful to keep them well watered, but not over water and warm but not too warm. Also there might be some kinds of peppers that are slower than others and some seed that is slow because it isn’t in the best shape. If the peppers are really slow you might want to get some new seed and get it started in case the first planting doesn’t work put.

      Like

      Reply

  14. I wish I’d retained my adoptive mother’s frugality, but at least I did retain her promptness. Her philosophy was that tardiness is disrespect, and the proper time to arrive is 10 minutes early. Some members of Mom’s family, though, were so consistently late they’d have to be told that Christmas or Easter dinner were two hours earlier in order to get them to the meal at all. The last time I met up with one of those cousins (practically the only family member I’d stayed in contact with after my parents’ deaths), she was 40 minutes late. I was halfway through my meal by the time she showed up–if I hadn’t been hungry and at one of my favorite restaurants, I would have just walked out. I’m pretty sure she figured out how annoyed I was, because she’s steered clear of me ever since.

    Like

    Reply

      1. Agreed, and it is all the worse if you arrive late for a meal. Good cooks need to know when to expect a guest to show.

        Some hosts would be upset by someone coming early. But that probably doesn’t apply to a guest who shows up early and is not the kind of person to be judgmental in case the host is still madly getting ready for the event. tim showed up early at something planned here once, but tim is non-threatening and eager to pitch in to help. That makes a difference.

        Like

        Reply

  15. i always meet people in bookstores so you can have something to do while you are waiting. not as needed with smart phones and coffee shops that allow you to get on with your stuff while you wait but i always find i am looking forward to having 15 minutes more before they show up so i can keep looking at the side topics i have emerged into while wandering around in the book store. bob dylan has a wonderful new rollingstone biography, excellent veggie cooing ideas from gourmet veggie magazines, contemporary housing designs. authors i think about but dont get to.do in my other life.
    if it evolves into an hour as it sometimmes does i ma not nearly as pissed as i would be otherwise. disrespect is the same as head up your rear end in most instances and i try to cut a little slack because i know really nice people with a version or tow of that. one sneaks into my mirror every morning.

    Like

    Reply

  16. i am smiling because i am remembering an 8th grade english reacher i used to stop in on unannounced and hang out for the afternoon. she was a vibrant lady in her 20’s at the time i suppose but every now and again shed ask if i could announce myself ahead of time so i didnt catch her in the midst of something. it must be a fargo thing or a jonse thing because it was my dads favorite thing to do and his dads too. go have coffee with someone for an hour or two spur of the moment. never late but sometimes rude. today everyone has something going on. that hasnt always been the case. we used to have more adjustable flex in our schedules . today its an agenda starting at age 5 and carried on as the right way to live.
    my other favorite teacher was one i stopped in on also. you get to know someone and reach a comfort level arriving on a how’s it going basis. let me sip coffee while you wash your windows or putz in your lawn. life can be simple

    Like

    Reply

  17. Russ Ringsak has a story about trouble on the road and he makes a comment about “…staying for breakfast and missing supper…” Meaning because he was close to his destination, he sat and ate breakfast. And while he was, the floodwaters came up and the road got closed resulting in a 700 mile detour. I think about that often.

    Like

    Reply

  18. It seems like the times I am most often on time when others are late are when I am waiting for someone to pick me up.

    I used to be very prompt, but not so much anymore. It seems more difficult now to get out the door and remember basic things like wallet, money, book to read, notebook and pen, or whatever I need.

    Like

    Reply

  20. I hate to admit it, but I’m almost compulsive about being on time, and depending on where I’m going, often “on time” means being at least 15 minutes early, taking into account traffic, parking, etc.. There’s simply no excuse, short of a flat tire or some other mishap, for being late to a theater production of any kind. I view it as being inconsiderate and rude toward your fellow theater goers. For dinners we try to arrive only a few minutes early so as not to upset the hosts. For fourteen years I worked in an environment that tolerated the same four or five people to routinely be late for our Monday morning mandatory meetings; drove me nuts having to compensate for their tardiness by repeating information. As I mentioned earlier, I have dear friends who are always late. Nowadays they get invited to our house only for casual BBQs in the back yard; including them in a sit-down dinner is just too exasperating. I know cultural differences are at work here in some cases, and I know these friends mean no disrespect, but it drives me crazy anyway. Wish I could adopt tim’s much more relaxed attitude about it; I’ve tried and failed miserably.

    Like

    Reply

  22. the alternative is a possibility an undesirable result to be reckoned. you cant not be late once you are so the only other alternative is to not be able to be either late of on time. late is a great alternative given a choice.

    Like

    Reply

Leave a reply to Anna Cancel reply