Richie Havens, singer who opened Woodstock, dies

New York, April 23 (IANS/EFE) US singer-songwriter Richie Havens, the artist who opened the iconic Woodstock Festival in 1969 and one of this country's folk music legends, died Monday of a heart attack, according to his agent. He was 72.

Havens died at his home in Jersey City, New Jersey, Tim Drake of The Roots Agency told EFE.

The singer released 29 albums during his long career.

Born in Brooklyn in January 1941, Havens began his performing career on the Greenwich Village music stage in the early 1960s, when it was unusual to find African American artists.

Little by little, he created a niche for himself with the intensity of his performance and his peculiar manner of playing the guitar.

Havens received wide recognition and acclaim at Woodstock, where he was selected to open the festival in the town of the same name in upstate New York, and he was also immortalized in a film that made him famous worldwide.

--IANS/EFE

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