Richie Havens was one of many folkies drawn to the mid-'60s Greenwich Village scene, but even his earliest work—like a rendition of country songwriter Billy Edd Wheeler's “High Flyin' Bird”—is suffused with a soulful grit and rhythmic restlessness. Those qualities would coalesce to staggering effect on “Freedom,” a fiery, furiously strummed protest anthem that became a hair-raising highlight of the Woodstock soundtrack. But that wasn't the sole era he helped define—with 1980's fearlessly funky “Going Back to My Roots,” Havens not only successfully adapted to the disco age, he also delivered a piano-pounded prototype for house music.