Richie Havens — Newport Folk Festival, 2008

Full filmed concert of Richie Havens at the Newport Folk Festival on 2 August 2008 in Newport, Rhode Island. Immortalised by his legendary opening of the Woodstock festival in 1969, Richie Havens returns here to one of the most mythical stages in American folk, seventeen years after his last Newport appearance. Instantly recognisable for his percussive, rhythmic open-tuning guitar playing and his deep, inhabited voice, he delivers a committed set mixing originals and covers, notably of Bob Dylan — “Maggie’s Farm” and “All Along the Watchtower” are heard — through to his anthem “Freedom.” This live capture documents the magnetic presence of an activist artist, a figure of the folk movement and the civil-rights era, a few years before his death in 2013. The full concert video is a moving testimony from a master of the acoustic stage. Worth discovering for the intensity of the playing, the sincerity of the message and the quiet strength of a filmed live concert by a legend of American folk.