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AMG review by Jim Newsom
Richie Havens' finest recording, Mixed Bag captures the essence of his music and presents it in an attractive package that has held up well. A close listen to lyrics like 'I Can't Make It Anymore' and 'Morning, Morning' reveals sadness and loneliness, yet the music is so appealingly positive that a listener actually comes away feeling uplifted. In fact, on most of the songs on this album, it's the sound of Havens' distinctive voice coupled with his unusual open-E guitar tuning, rather than the specific lyrical content of the songs, that pulls the listener in. The six-and-a-half minute 'Follow' is structured like a Dylan composition in the 'Hard Rain' mode, with its memorable verse-ending refrain, 'Don't mind me 'cause I ain't nothin' but a dream.' Both 'Sandy' and 'San Francisco Bay Blues' have a jazzy feel, while the aforementioned 'I Can't Make It Anymore' would not have been out of place in a movie soundtrack or pop radio playlist of the time. 'Handsome Johnny,' one of Havens' best known songs as a result of the Woodstock film, is a classic anti-war ballad, stoked by the singer's unmistakable thumb-chorded guitar strumming. Mixed Bag winds up with a soulful cover of Dylan's 'Just Like a Woman' and an electric piano-propelled take on the Lennon-McCartney classic, 'Eleanor Rigby.'