51 Quotes by Richie Havens

It's a brand new world, and it's just beginning again, but on such a wonderful level of being able to communicate with each other directly, being able to talk to people all over the world,

I told him, 'You don't need to get gigs from the union. You can make your own band,' ... That's how he did it. He went down to the coffeehouse I told him to go to. A month later, I'm around the corner at another cafe. Friend of mine comes up and says, 'You gotta hear this band! This guy was great!' And I went around the corner and went, 'It's him! It's that guy!' He was so magical.

It's the first time that the original people were invited back to play, ... They're doing it right. It's going to be a wonderful 30th anniversary and reunion. I'm looking forward to it.

In the last two years, the youngest people are asking me for the oldest songs, ... I'm talking kids . It blows my mind. I look at them and go, 'How could you have heard that song? I haven't sung it in 20 years.' It's like I'm just starting now. I finally got a career.

You've got to go down to the Village. That's where it's happening.

When I write a song today, basically it goes on the stage tomorrow. That's the way it works. You cannont interrupt your consciousness; it all comes from the subconscious, it can happen anywhere. It could be in a telephone booth.

I tended to listen to doo-wop, but my grandmother would always have the radio on all day and she'd start with Yiddish and then move on to gospel and later to "make believe" ballroom music. I got to hear all kinds of music and my mother would get up to go to work listening to country music. That was her alarm clock. My dad was a jazz lover and listened to the man who wrote "Misty", Errol Garner. He loved piano players, so I got to listen to that as well.

Nothing has really changed. We had bootleg albums in the '60s and today we have Internet file sharing. They just found a better way to do it -- get music for free. What's great about today is an artist has an opportunity to go direct to their audience without dealing with a middleman. People can go directly to the web for CDs, DVDs and downloads. I think that's the best thing that's happened, that people's music is being flashed around the world.

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