Richie Havens

The much-traveled Richie Havens will take a rare break from his performing schedule to spend tonight and Christmas with the grandchildren, but on Sunday, he'll be back in action, appearing at the intimate Eleven33 room at Resorts Atlantic City. And it's a free show. For Havens, it'll be like a return to his days playing folk clubs in the Village - except for the glitz and rattle of slot machines. Havens first went to the Village in the late '50s, mostly out of curiosity, from his home in Brooklyn, where he had spent several years in street-corner doo wop. "We had been reading about these beatniks who hung out or lived in Greenwich Village, and we wanted to find out what a beatnik was, and so a friend and I went right to the source," Havens said.

The works of Richie Havens are striking as explosions, star-shaped, reaching outward and inward at the same time. Not his music: the songs that stirred unrest in the Sixties, the insistent guitar, the husky plaint of "Freedom" that opened Woodstock 25 years ago. And forget the Amtrak jingle. These works are visual: drawings distending and expanding consciousness, pencil pieces that twist reality, turn it in on itself, until, in some pocket of manmade environment, a glimpse of nature peeks through.

With Woodstock revivals all the rage, Atlantic City decided to get into the act over the weekend with its own 25th-anniversary celebration of the legendary rock fest. Titled Harborfest 1994 and held at Gardiner's Basin, the two-day event featured John Sebastian, Richie Havens and Jefferson Starship, with original Jefferson Airplane members Paul Kantner, Marty Balin, Jack Casady and Signe Anderson-Ettlin

The local nightclub Bacchanal will feature a folk festival with an ambitious schedule and lineup of performers on Sunday. Beginning at 4 p.m., Bacchanal will be using its main stage and its upstairs stage to present no fewer than 16 acts. Among those performing are Bob Ocean, Phil "Harmonica" Black, Liz DeHaven, Irvin Levy and Greg Seebo. Bacchanal Folk Festival, 1320 South St., Sunday, 4 p.m.-midnight. Admission: $4 in advance, $5 at the door. Information: 545-6983. Veteran rockers the Grateful Dead come to the Spectrum for a series of three sold-out concerts beginning on Sunday.

The Philadelphia Folk Festival, the area's biggest party in the park for folk-music aficionados, returns to Old Pool Farm near Schwenksville next Friday to Aug. 25 for its 30th-birthday celebration. On tap during the three-day event will be performances by festival regulars Mike Cross, Roger Sprung, David Bromberg, Steve Forbert, Tom Paxton, Tom Rush, Richie Havens, Stephen Wade and his Band of Soloists and many others, plus, appearing for the first time together, Pete, Mike, Penny and Peggy Seeger.

Former President George Bush and wife Barbara, President Clinton, David Letterman, Richie Havens, and Barbara Walters have been among Rena Sinakin's subjects. But the Northeast Philadelphia portrait artist says she is just as proud of her depictions of everyday people. A one-woman show of Sinakin's work will begin tomorrow at Romeo's Fine Arts in Lansdale and continue through April 11. About 30 oil paintings and portraits in pencil and pastel, on loan from collections across the United States, will be on view.

Richie Havens has to be wondering about all those people who told the rocking troubadour that they would see him next weekend in Bethel, N.Y. "I've been all over the world during the past year and everyone was talking about the 25th anniversary of Woodstock," Havens said. "They all wanted to go to Max Yasgur's farm. From what I could gather, you can expect 70,000 kids from Germany alone. " That was a few days before Monday's announcement that Bethel '94 - the more authentic of two competing events scheduled to mark the anniversary - had been canceled.

Two major concerts in the area this weekend - INXS and Smokey Robinson - have sold out, so if you want to go it's left to fate, meaning scalpers or cancellations or a close friend with an extra ticket. INXS, the hottest band of the moment, hits the Spectrum tonight with a set that includes the lion's share of its two albums, the current hit Kick and 1985's Listen Like Thieves. Playing hard-rock music with a danceable beat, Australia's INXS has become the band of choice for teens with taste.

Flower Power people don't fade away, they turn on public television. At least that's the hope of WHYY-TV 12, which is stockpiling its "Meet the Challenge" fund-raising effort with four specials that "remember" the youth culture of the 1960s. "Folk Rock Reunion," airing tonight at 10:15, celebrates the Greenwich Village school of song poets - artists who took their lyrical inspirations from news headlines, and who were more committed to changing the world than they were to entertaining and earning money.

Operation Allegro will storm into West Chester Henderson High School on April 21 with the objective of using the power of music to raise money for the families of service people in the Persian Gulf. Musician Kevin Roth of Kennett Square will donate his time and talent for the concert. Roth plays the dulcimer, an oval-shaped stringed instrument of the southern Appalachians. Roth said the program, geared to young people, would include selections from his albums for children - The Unbearable Bears, Dinosaurs and Dragons and Lullabies for Little Dreamers.

Everybody knows the Woodstock Music & Art Fair was the biggest, most zeitgeist-defining of 1960s music festivals. But how good was the music, really? The 40th anniversary offers a chance to listen in more detail than ever before. That's thanks largely to Rhino Records' six-CD boxed set, Woodstock 40 Years On: Back to Yasgur's Farm (. 1/2), which means to capture the countercultural gestalt with highlights from (almost) all of the performers, including Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Sly & the Family Stone, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Santana, and Ravi Shankar.

Live music and more, tonight through Thursday, compiled by Shaun Brady, Tom Di Nardo, James Johnson, Sara Sherr and Jonathan Takiff. POP . . . plus Fountains of Wayne: These Jersey peaches squeeze out juicy acoustic versions of "Stacy's Mom," "Mexican Wine" and "Too Cool for School" with friend and collaborator Mike Viola opening. Sellersville Theater, Main and Temple streets, Sellersville, 8:30 tonight, $29.50, 215-257-5808, www.st94.com . John Gorka: The trenchant story teller who gave us "I'm From Jersey" (see a thread here?

As folk music floated from a gazebo, ghostly images from the '60s seemed to walk in an Upper Merion park last Sunday night. Long-haired young women wove garlands of clover. Pony-tailed men moved to the music in the thousand-strong crowd. Children danced and flung their arms to the sky. The scene at the township's 19th annual Concert Under the Stars series looked like Woodstock - with manners. Even the dogs behaved. Time has tempered the music-lovers' antics, but the appetite for open-air concerts remains strong.

The much-traveled Richie Havens will take a rare break from his performing schedule to spend tonight and Christmas with the grandchildren, but on Sunday, he'll be back in action, appearing at the intimate Eleven33 room at Resorts Atlantic City. And it's a free show. For Havens, it'll be like a return to his days playing folk clubs in the Village - except for the glitz and rattle of slot machines. Havens first went to the Village in the late '50s, mostly out of curiosity, from his home in Brooklyn, where he had spent several years in street-corner doo wop. "We had been reading about these beatniks who hung out or lived in Greenwich Village, and we wanted to find out what a beatnik was, and so a friend and I went right to the source," Havens said.

We've come a long way, baby, from the days when hokey, middle-of-the-road pop acts like the Starlight Vocal Band could win the coveted New Artist award at the Grammys - up for grabs again Feb. 28 with a CBS telecast. This year, a younger, hipper set of award nominators has anointed the New Artist contenders - and their selections include not only the obvious, runaway success story of the past year, Hootie and the Blowfish, but also the cutting-edge singer-songwriter Joan Osborne and semi-controversial rebel-rouser Alanis Morissette, who managed to slip the "F" word into her big hit "You Oughta Know.

Former President George Bush and wife Barbara, President Clinton, David Letterman, Richie Havens, and Barbara Walters have been among Rena Sinakin's subjects. But the Northeast Philadelphia portrait artist says she is just as proud of her depictions of everyday people. A one-woman show of Sinakin's work will begin tomorrow at Romeo's Fine Arts in Lansdale and continue through April 11. About 30 oil paintings and portraits in pencil and pastel, on loan from collections across the United States, will be on view.

Throw in a few pilgrims and you would have had a recreation of that Thanksgiving harvest feast of 1621. Turkey with all the fixin's, a sunny, crisp autumn day, festive music and a nature hike through the woods. There was also an urgent message on hand yesterday. Be good to the Earth. With the Wheelabrator trash-to-steam plant looming in the background, about 60 young Natural Guard members appreciated the Gloucester wildlife refuge during the second annual Nature Scavenger Hunt and Harvest Feast.

With Woodstock revivals all the rage, Atlantic City decided to get into the act over the weekend with its own 25th-anniversary celebration of the legendary rock fest. Titled Harborfest 1994 and held at Gardiner's Basin, the two-day event featured John Sebastian, Richie Havens and Jefferson Starship, with original Jefferson Airplane members Paul Kantner, Marty Balin, Jack Casady and Signe Anderson-Ettlin

Richie Havens has to be wondering about all those people who told the rocking troubadour that they would see him next weekend in Bethel, N.Y. "I've been all over the world during the past year and everyone was talking about the 25th anniversary of Woodstock," Havens said. "They all wanted to go to Max Yasgur's farm. From what I could gather, you can expect 70,000 kids from Germany alone. " That was a few days before Monday's announcement that Bethel '94 - the more authentic of two competing events scheduled to mark the anniversary - had been canceled.

The works of Richie Havens are striking as explosions, star-shaped, reaching outward and inward at the same time. Not his music: the songs that stirred unrest in the Sixties, the insistent guitar, the husky plaint of "Freedom" that opened Woodstock 25 years ago. And forget the Amtrak jingle. These works are visual: drawings distending and expanding consciousness, pencil pieces that twist reality, turn it in on itself, until, in some pocket of manmade environment, a glimpse of nature peeks through.