Somethin' Else Again
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Album Summary
Richie Havens laid down 'Somethin' Else Again' in 1967 and released it through Verve Folkways, that beautifully restless subsidiary of Verve Records that was out there on the front lines championing the folk and folk-rock movement before most people even knew what to call it. This record came to life during one of the most creatively charged stretches of Havens's early career, a time when he was cementing himself as the spiritual heartbeat of the Greenwich Village folk revival — developing that unmistakable open-tuning guitar style and that percussive, almost tribal strumming that didn't sound like anybody else on the planet. The release landed right in the thick of 1967, when folk was tangling itself up beautifully with psychedelia and soul, and Havens was already deep into what would become his defining artistic signature — taking songs written by other hands and breathing something entirely new and searingly personal into them.
Reception
- The album found a warm and devoted audience in folk and underground circles, where Havens's reputation as one of the most emotionally raw and spiritually alive interpreters of his generation continued to grow with each release.
- Mainstream chart success was not what this record was chasing, and the music press covering the folk and counterculture scenes responded with the kind of deep critical respect that speaks louder than any chart position ever could.
- The album played a meaningful role in establishing Havens as a serious album artist with real staying power, building the devoted cult following that would make his legendary Woodstock performance in 1969 feel like an inevitable coronation.
Significance
- 'Somethin' Else Again' captures Richie Havens standing right at the crossroads of folk, soul, and early psychedelia — a living document of everything 1967 was churning up culturally and musically, with Havens serving as a vital bridge between those worlds.
- The interpretive fearlessness Havens brought to this record — transforming outside material through sheer emotional force and his rhythmically percussive fingerpicking in open tunings — set a standard for how a folk artist could make any song feel like it was always theirs.
- Released in the year of the Summer of Love, the album stands as one of the essential artifacts of the Greenwich Village counterculture moment, carrying the spiritual urgency and social conscience that made Havens not just a musician but a genuine voice of his time.
Tracklist
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A1 No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed 131
3:00
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A2 Inside Of Him 55
4:27
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A3 The Klan 115
4:31
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A4 Sugarplums 95
2:54
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A5 Don't Listen To Me 124
4:25
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B1 From The Prison 79
3:40
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B2 Maggie's Farm 122
4:35
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B3 Somethin' Else Again 138
7:26
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B4 New City 99
2:50
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B5 Run, Shaker Life 128
5:45
Artist Details
Richie Havens was a soulful, deeply spiritual folk and soul guitarist born in Brooklyn, New York, who rose to prominence in the Greenwich Village folk scene of the early 1960s and became a legend in his own right long before he ever stepped on the stage at Woodstock in 1969 — where his iconic, improvised performance of "Freedom" opened that historic festival and burned his name into the soul of a generation. His raw, rhythmic open-tuned guitar style and his voice, a force of nature that could bring a crowd to tears or its feet, set him apart from every other folksinger of his era, blending blues, gospel, and folk into something that was entirely and unmistakably his own. Richie Havens stood as a bridge between the civil rights movement and the counterculture, a man whose music carried the weight of struggle and the warmth of hope, and his legacy remains as rich and resonant today as the day those strings first rang out across half a million people in upstate New York.
