Sunday, September 21, 2008

Richie Havens Saves Marc Levine's Butt In New York City

One of the earliest concerts we played, that I can remember, was as the opening act for Richie Havens. The performance was held at a concert hall on the Barnard Baruch campus of the City University of New York. At that concert, a strange and wonderful thing happened to our bass player, Marc Levine.

Since the concert was in New York City, it was only short drive for us from Long Island to the Bernard Baruch campus of CUNY. Our roadies, Bob Kolowitz and Ricky Morgenstern took all of our equipment in a van and we followed in a car. While Bob and Ricky set up our equipment on the stage the rest of us went downstairs to get changed into our stage clothes for the show. As we were winding our way through the dark, dank basement of the building, we walked past a fellow in one of the hallways. At first I didn’t recognize the man. He was older than we were and when he turned around to say hello I noticed that he was toothless. It then dawned upon me that it was actually Richie Havens. (Of course, later, he had his false teeth in place when he performed.) We all said hello to each other and when we referred to him as Mr. Havens, he said: “Just call me Ritchie.” He told us to have a good show. We thanked him and proceeded to our dressing rooms.

A little while later it was time to go on stage. Almost immediately, Marc had a look of panic on his face. Apparently, his bass amp had died and with no spare parts with which to fix it and no spare amp the situation looked hopeless. At that point the roadie for Richie Havens called Marc offstage and told him that Richie had offered to let Marc use his bass amp. What a strange and wonderful thing that was! Bob and Ricky quickly switched bass amps for Marc and we were able to proceed with our set. After Richie had played his set we met up with him backstage to thank him for his generosity. He was very gracious and told us it was no big deal. He then asked us to join him at a “beer blast” that he had been invited to by some of the CUNY students at the concert. As I remember, we declined his invitation.

All in all it turned out to be a good concert and that’s how Richie Havens saved Marc Levine’s Butt in New York City.

1 comment:

Marc Levine said...

I remember this show, but do not remember having an amp problem or using the other bassist's gear. Great memory Joy.

Keep those stories coming, really enjoy them.

Marc