"The night they drove old Dixie down, and the bells were ringing, the night they drove old Dixie down, and all the people were singing"
When legendary artist of Woodstock are mentioned a name that is often forgotten in time is that of Richie Havens. While he was known to create funk music, and sing soul he was best known for his blues, country and folk music. Often hitting the stage with nothing but his acoustic guitar. He was also known to mix themes of the times into his music whether it be politics or Civil Rights. While initially only speaking through the lyrics of his music Havens eventually did become more outspoken and embraced the media for Civil Rights.
Live At The Cellar door is a live album where Havens is backed by a band on some tracks but majority of his singing is only backed by his guitar. In addition to his own songs he covers songs fro other artist such as Bob Dylan as well as some Negro Spirituals passed down since slavery. Most of the songs have been restyled to fit a more country, blues or folk styling for this album, even rock songs while he slowly sings through them. Occasionally he stops the music for a brief interlude or introduction to a song he finds really important.
The album opens with "I Can't Make It Anymore," a slow and sad song. It's a song that was written alongside Gordon Lightfoot. The song captures a glimpse of what it's like to fight depression. The song features Richie being stuck down low and he can't figure out why. Eventually he leaves his wife or girlfriend, not because of her, but because of him. He doesn't want to be around her anymore. He doesn't want to be around anyone else really asking "Where do I belong?" All the while asking why he can't understand why he's leaving her. It can be looked at as a pure love song but it was written with Gordon Lightfoot who has struggled with depression his entire life. When you're depressed sometimes you simply don't want to be around anyone else because you feel like you're a burden and not worth their time. It was never stated but depression could be the reason he stayed away from the media so much early in his career. Mental illness isn't something we talk about in the black community often. For every Scarface or Kid Cudi that's open about their struggles with mental illness there's ten Nina Simone's, who struggled with it her entire life and refused to acknowledge it.
The song "All Around The Watchtower," is a song that was originally written by Bob Dylan and popularized by Jimi Hendrix. The song makes reference to chapter 25 verses 5 through 9 from the of The Book of Issiah in the Bible. In the Bible a king has been told to send men to look from the watchtower and tell him what they see, they return and tell him that Babylon has fallen and chariots are riding towards their kingdom signifying the end for them. In the song a Joker and a Thief are locked in a watchtower and looking over the world. The Joker is worried about the end of the world and the thief reminds him that there are plenty of other that feel hopeless and trapped. This leads us to a ton of interpretations of who the joker and thief are.
The first is that Jesus Christ is the joker. In the Bible he stated "It's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter into heaven." Businessmen are usually very rich and here the Joker is disgusted that they're drinking his wine. The wine representing Jesus' blood at the last supper and all communions after. He wants out of the tower so that he can rectify this. In this version the Thief would be the thief that was crucified next to Jesus. Similar to the crucifixion where the thief mocks Jesus, the thief mocks the Joker. The thief reminds him that there are plenty of others in similar situations and find life to be a joke. He sounds logical, but also chaotic in the sense that he finds people in despair to be the answer. It's interesting because Havens introduces the song by laughing about politicians. Politicians sound logical but most of the time they just cause chaos.
Another interpretation is The Joker is St. Michael The Archangel. In the battle between Heaven and Hell he lead the armies of Heaven against The Fallen Angel Lucifer, making Lucifer the thief. In this version Michael is worried about people living in chaos, while Lucifer feels this is the right way for things to be.
A third version is that the Joker is Bob Dylan himself while Elvis Presley is the Thief. Everyone from Living Colour, to Eminem, to Public Enemy and back again has stated Elvis was a racist who stole black music. Thus, he would be the thief in this story. Dylan would be the Joker because he made a career of doing rock music, the same as Elvis but his songs carried a social conscious because he's worried about the world. It's an interesting take and we may never know which of the hundreds is correct. Bob Dylan actually stated Jimi Hendrix's cover version was the correct version so Jimi obviously knew something none of us do.
"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," is another song with a lot of history. The song tells the story of a confederate soldier named Kane, who represents the south, in a town feeling bad about union soldiers riding into town and tearing down the confederate flag. The people in the town are hurt by this. Originally it's a slow rock song throughout by a group called The Band Havens changed that. It's still a slow song but instead of remaining slow the speed picks up during the chorus when the flag is being torn down. Havens celebrates the flag going down. One lyric stated "I swear by the mud below my feet, you can raise a Kane back up, hen he's in defeat." Referencing the stupid quote "The south will rise again," making a point that the confederacy will once again rise. Havens changes the lyric to "I swear by the mud below my feet, you can't raise Kane back up, when he's defeated," because the confederacy will not rise again.
Robbie Robertson of The Band thought the song was truly about the confederacy rising again. Levon Helm who helped with writing the song thought it was about whites in the south who were members of the confederate but did not own slaves. These whites were essentially sharecroppers alongside free blacks but still joined the confederacy because of promises of wealth. They felt despair when the flag fell but slowly realized nothing had changed for them. When Helm found out it was about the south rising again he refused to ever play the song.
The song is followed by "No More, No More," which is a rearrangement of Bob Dylan's song "No More Auction Block." Dylan's song is actually a rearrangement of a song that black soldier in both the confederacy and union sang during the Civil War. Black in the Union knew they weren't going to another auction block. Black soldiers in the confederacy were led to believe they would be free if they fought. Dylan's version has him singing from the view of a slave owner who has come to the conclusion that he was wrong thus his line about "No more driver's lash for me, many thousands gone," he's done whipping slaves and the money he paid walked out the door with him. Havens instead sings from the point of view of a slave with the lyric "no more whip lash for me, no more, no more, no more pint of salt for me," making reference to the fact that when a slave was whipped salt would literally be poured into their wounds.
"Superman," is the only titled interlude and the only one that last more than thirty seconds. Havens talks about his love for comic books because he could see thing he wouldn't see in the world. He considered super heroes the only people he could look up to. Then he drops the bomb
"Superman was an alien doing all the things we as humans couldn't do like fighting for law and order, and of course flying [...] after they snatched the comic books away from us they put them on TV and that was to mess up. They had a fat man on TV playing Superman destroying the image, they even forgot the curl [...] On TV Superman fights for 'truth, justice and the American Way' I always thought truth and jstice was the American Way. We blew it. We weren't really listening, it comes on our TV everyday and they tell you 'truth justice and The American Way' we blew it. We missed the whole boat, all the time they've been telling us what they were doing to us and we couldn't even dig that"It's a nice little insight. They took comic books away from kids because they were too violent and obscene. Comics were supposedly brainwashing kids to do bad things. Then they take the characters and put them on TV to actually brainwash kids. They boldly told them truth and justice were not the American Way. So how can we expect truth and justice when The American Way is genocide and manifest destiny?
It's followed by the track "The Dolphins," a song about how dolphins get along and we as people can't. It points out the world may never change because we can't get past black vs white issues. We fight wars that don't change anything in the end. We should be like dolphins and just love each other.
He finishes the album with a combination of the Negro Spirituals "Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen," and "My Sweet Lord." Even if you aren't religious it makes a good bookend. Throughout the album Havens struggles with issues of depression, racism and oppression only to finally find some solace. You may not find solace in religion and that's perfectly okay but you have to find solace in something. If you don't the world will eat you alive. That's what the whole album is about, finding solace so you don't go insane.
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You can hear Darrell on the CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts. He also plays classic arcade games on The Cabinet
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