“I remember the first time I was booked into a jazz club. I was scared ...” — Richie Havens Quote

“I remember the first time I was booked into a jazz club. I was scared to death. I'm not a jazz artist. So I got to the club and spotted this big poster saying, 'Richie Havens, folk jazz artist.' Then I'd go to a rock club and I'm billed as a 'folk rock performer' and in the blues clubs I'd be a 'folk blues entertainer.'”

“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.”

“I came up in Brooklyn singing doo-wop music from the time I was 13 to the time I was 20. That music served a purpose of keeping a lot of people out of trouble, and also it was a passport from one neighborhood to another.”

“It's an often-asked question, 'Why did all these spotty white English boys suddenly start playing blues in the '60s?' It was recognized as this kind of vibrant music and when I first started playing in a blues band I just wanted to bring it to a wider public who hadn't really heard it.”

“Yes, there's a lot of the blues in my playing.”

“The blues is not the creation of a crushed-spirited people. It is the product of a forward-looking, upward-striving people.”