In October 1965 Curtis Knight recorded “How Would You Feel.” Knight’s guitarist was the young and still-living-in-the-USA Jimi Hendrix.
Curtis Knight Jimi Hendrix
Before Knight
In 1962, Hendrix had left the Army after a brief unproductive stint. At least as far as his military prowess was concerned since he spent much of his hitch playing guitar.
In February 1964, Hendrix had won the amateur contest at the Apollo Theater in NYC.
In March 1964, Hendrix was part of the Isley Brothers band and recorded the two-part single “Testify” before beginning a tour with them.
Earlier in 1965, Hendrix had played a session for Rosa Lee Brooks on her single “My Diary” Around the same time he also backed Little Richard on “I Don’t Know What You’ve Got, But It’s Got Me.”
After Knight
September 22, 1966 was Jimi Hendrix’s first day in England after the Animals’ ex-bassist turned producer Chas Chandler “discovered” him in New York City fronting Jimmy James and the Blue Flames in the various Greenwich Village clubs.
Though Hendrix only recorded three studio albums, anyone with any of his recordings of any kind tried to jump on the Hendrix goose that seemingly laid only golden eggs.
In 1965, he had signed a contract with PPX records to play with Curtis Knight. After Hendrix and his Experience struck it big with Are You Experienced?, PPX packaged Hendrix’s Knight tracks as its own album while playing up Hendrix’s role in the Squires.
A similar PPX album called Got That Feeling was also planned for the U.K. in 1968 before the courts stepped in and barred the release, with Hendrix himself calling it “musically worthless.”
March 2015
47 years later, Hendrix’s estate, Eperience Hendrix LLC, released You Can’t Use My Name: Curtis Knight & The Squires (featuring Jimi Hendrix) The RSVP/PPX Sessions. The name is an obvious reference to previous legal issues. Experience Hendrix selected 14 of the 88 studio recordings Hendrix had made with Curtis Knight.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ “Hey Joe” 1986 on the Nightmusic Show
Sometimes the power of a musicians’s instrument hides the horror of the song’s lyrics. So it was for me with “Hey Joe.” By the time I got to the third track of the Experience’s debut album, I thought I was experienced. Of course I wasn’t, but I’d fully imbibed the music’s Kool-Aid. What would the next track do to me. And side 2 awaited!
It was on October 23, 1966 that the Jimi Hendrix Experience recorded ‘Hey Joe’ at DeLane Lea studios in London. It became their first single.
It wasn’t the first time someone recorded the song and who wrote it remains a bit of a controversy.
Niela Miller
Niela Miller was one of the many young folksingers drawn to Greenwich Village.
According to a piece in the Fret Board Journal, Sometime around 1955 she wrote “Baby, Please Don’t Go To Town,” a mournful song about the joys and perils a young woman faced in the city. She recorded the song in 1962.
Jimi Hendrix Hey Joe
Billy Roberts
Billy Roberts was Niela’s boyfriend and liked the song. He wrote new words and changed the story to a guy Joe who’d murdered his lover. He copyrighted “his” song in 1962. He played his “Hey Joe” and many of Greenwich Villages artists heard it and covered it.
Later Roberts moved to San Francisco.
Jimi Hendrix Hey Joe
Chet Powers > Dino Valenti
Another Greenwich Village expatriate, Chet Powers also started playing the song in LA, hoping a band would pick up “his” song.
Powers’ name by then was Dino Valenti, a name we don’t associate with “Hey Joe” but should associate with a song we are certain he wrote: Let’s Get Together.
Tim Rose
And yet another Greenwich expat, Tim Rose, performed “Hey Joe.” Rose claimed that it was a standard he’d learned as a boy. Here’s Tim doing the song in 1967:
Despite much searching, no one has found a traditional song that predates Naomi Miller’s song or Robert’s re-interpretation.
Los Angeles
Be that as it may, the Byrds and Love group also began to include it in their sets. It was The Leaves, another Los Angeles band, that recorded the song as a single in 1965.
Here is a video of their version. Jim Pons, the bass player, later joined The Turtles, Flo and Eddie, and the Mothers of Invention (who had their own Mothers-version of the tune–“Hey Pop, where you goin’ with that button on your shirt?”)
Jimi Hendrix Hey Joe
Finally Jimi
And of course, THE version for most is Jimi’s. As you can see above on the album label Billy Roberts gets credit. Here’s a great live Hendrix version.
Jimi Hendrix Hey Joe
Other Joes
Others who have covered the song including Wilson Pickett, Patti Smith, and Eddie Murphy. In fact, a site called “Hey Joe Versions” shows a list of over 1800 artists who have covered it.
For me the one that gets to the song’s horror is Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ version that you heard above. Here’s the video to watch and enjoy.
Jimi Hendrix Hey Joe
If you’d like to read more, there’s a likely better article than this one written by psaudio.com’s Stuart Marvin . Follow this link. In it he has his own list of covers.
The Leaves (1965)
The Byrds (1966)
Jimi Hendrix (1966 U.K./1967 U.S.)
Love (1966)
Cher (1967)
Johnny Hallyday (1967)
Deep Purple (1968)
Johnny Rivers (1968)
Wilson Pickett (1969)
Patti Smith (1974)
Roy Buchanan (1974)
Spirit (1975)
Ten Years After (1979)
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (1986)
Seal (1991)
Eddie Murphy (1993)
Otis Taylor (1996, 2008, 2015)
Helge & The Firef*ckers (1999)
Robert Plant (2002)
Brad Mehldau (2012)
Charlotte Gainsbourg (2013)
Jimi Hendrix Hey Joe
Those Poles!
Marvin also adds this interesting historic fact: …during a 2019 “Thank Jimi” festival in Wroclaw, Poland, 7,423 guitarists simultaneously played “Hey Joe” in a public square, breaking the record set at the previous year’s festival by 12.
October 23, 1783: Deborah Sampson honorably discharged from the Army after a year and a half of service. (see Deborah Sampson for expanded chronology)
Voting Rights
October 23, 1915: twenty-five thousand women marched in Manhattan, demanding the right to vote in all 48 states. [NYT article] (next F, see Dec 6; next VR, see December 4, 1916)
Clarence Thomas
October 23, 1991: despite the sexual misconduct allegations of Anita Hill on October 11, Clarence Thomas sworn in as the 106th U.S. Supreme Court Justice. (see January 28, 1992)
Sandra Day O’Connor
October 23, 2018: retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (see September 25, 1981) announced that “Some time ago doctors diagnosed me with the beginning stages of dementia, probably Alzheimer’s disease. As this condition has progressed, I am no longer able to participate in public life.” (see Nov 23)
October 23 Peace Love Art Activism
Cold War
Ronald Reagan
October 23, 1947: Ronald Reagan, then president of the Screen Actors Guild, appeared before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) as a “friendly” witness on this day. He testified to his opposition to Communism, and his testimony on this occasion was fairly mild anti-Communist rhetoric. (see Oct 27)
October 23 Peace Love Art Activism
BLACK HISTORY
An Appeal to the World
October 23, 1947: the NAACP filed formal charges with the United Nations, accusing the U.S. of racial discrimination. “An Appeal to the World,” edited by W.E.B. DuBois, was a study of the denial of the right to vote that included details of other discrimination. [NYT article] (see Oct 29)
Booker T. Mixon
October 23, 1959: Booker T. Mixon died (see Oct 12). Family members hired Memphis Attorney J.F. Estes to investigate the death. Estes requested of Governor J P Coleman a full scale investigation. However, the attorney could obtain neither an autopsy nor a coroners’ inquest. The death was written off as an automobile accident.
Aaron Henry was deeply suspicious of Mixon’s death. It was troubling, he observed, that Mixon was found completely nude, and that the family could not get a straight answer as to who transported Mixon to the hospital. There were two funeral companies in the area, one white and one black, neither of which was responsible for transporting Mixon’s body.
No charges were ever brought in the Mixon matter. (BH, see January 5, 1960; Mixon, see August 13, 2012)
137 SHOTS
October 23, 2017: local Cleveland media reported that police officers Michael Farley, Erin O’Donnell, Christopher Ereg, Wilfredo Diaz and Brian Sabolik who had been fired after the November 2012 police chase and shooting deaths of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams were reinstated earlier this month after an arbitrator’s ruling this summer. The sixth officer, Michael Brelo — the arbitrator ruled that he should remain fired. (see 137 for expanded story)
October 23 Peace Love Art Activism
Vietnam
South Vietnam Leadership
October 23, 1955: Ngo Dinh Diem held an election. He reportedly received 98.2% of the votes, a difficult winning percentage to believe which was further supported by the fact that the total number of votes for exceeded the number of registered voters by over 380,000. (see Oct 26)
Peace negotiations
October 23, 1972: after another Kissinger ‐ Thieu meeting, the South Vietnamese President called in his commanders of the four military regions, the 44 province chiefs and many of the 559 provincial councilors. Kissinger returned to Washington. According to Hanoi, the United States cited “difficulties in Saigon” and demanded continued negotiations, but “did not say anything about the implementation of its commitments under the agreed schedule,” Hanoi contended. (see Oct 24)
October 23 Peace Love Art Activism
Nuclear/Chemical News
Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency
October 23, 1956: The Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency was approved by the Conference on the Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which was held at the Headquarters of the United Nations. (see April 1957)
12.5 megaton
October 23, 1961: Soviet Union above-ground nuclear test. 12.5 megaton. [NYT article] (see Oct 30)
Kenneth Gelpey
October 23, 1961: Kenneth Gelpey wearing protective clothing as he emerged from a fallout shelter in Medford, Massachusetts with a Geiger counter in hand to “test for radiation”. Gelpey and his family spent the weekend in the shelter to test their equipment. (see Oct 30)
Cuban Missile Crisis
October 23, 1962: evidence presented by the U.S. Department of Defense, of Soviet missiles in Cuba. This low level photo of the medium range ballistic missile site under construction at Cuba’s San Cristobal area. A line of oxidizer trailers is at center. Added since October 14, the site was earlier photographed, were fuel trailers, a missile shelter tent, and equipment. The missile erector now lies under canvas cover. Evident also is extensive vehicle trackage and the construction of cable lines to control areas. (see Cuban Missile Crisis for expanded story)
October 23 Music et al
Dion
October 23 – November 5, 1961: “Runaround Sue” by Dion & the Belmonts #1 Billboard Hot 100.
Bob Dylan
October 23, 1963: Dylan recorded ‘The Times They Are A-Changin‘ at Columbia Recording Studios in New York City. Dylan wrote the song as a deliberate attempt to create an anthem of change for the time, influenced by Irish and Scottish ballads. (Dylan, see Oct 26; Times, see January 24, 1984)
October 23, 1966: The Jimi Hendrix Experience recorded their first single ‘Hey Joe’, at De Lane Lea studios in London. The earliest known commercial recording of the song was the late-1965 single by the Los Angeles garage band the The Leaves. (see Dec 26)
October 23 Peace Love Art Activism
Watergate Scandal
October 23, 1973: Nixon agreed to turn White House tape recordings requested by the Watergate special prosecutor over to Judge John J. Sirica . [NYT article] (see Watergate for expanded story)
October 23 Peace Love Art Activism
TERRORISM
October 23, 1983: Shiite suicide bombers explode truck near U.S. military barracks at Beirut airport, killing 241 marines. Minutes later a second bomb killed 58 French paratroopers in their barracks in West Beirut. [NYT article] (see Dec 12)
October 23 Peace Love Art Activism
BBC report on Ethiopia
October 23, 1984, BBC News TV reported that a famine was plaguing Ethiopia and thousands of people had already died of starvation and as many as 10,000,000 more lives are at risk. (see Nov 25)
October 23 Peace Love Art Activism
Jack Kevorkian
October 23, 1991: Kevokian attended the deaths of Marjorie Wantz, a 58-year-old Sodus, Michigan, woman with pelvic pain, and Sherry Miller, a 43-year-old Roseville, Michigan, woman with multiple sclerosis. The deaths occur at a rented state park cabin near Lake Orion, Michigan. Wantz dies from the suicide machine’s lethal drugs, Miller from carbon monoxide poisoning inhaled through a face mask. (see JKfor expanded story)
October 23 Peace Love Art Activism
Women’s Health
Dr. Barnett Slepian assassinated
October 23, 1998, Women’s Health: James Charles Kopp leaned against a tree behind the suburban home of Dr. Barnett Slepian, who performed abortions as part of his practice, and followed Slepian through the scope of a high-powered rifle.
Slepian, the married father of four young sons, entered the kitchen after returning home from a memorial service for his father, put a bowl of soup in a microwave oven and walked to a desk in the corner of the kitchen where he routinely put his keys, wallet and pager.
With that, Mr. Kopp, a longtime opponent of abortion whose beliefs earned him the nickname Atomic Dog among like-minded people, squeezed the trigger and fired.
The single shot broke the kitchen window and struck Dr. Slepian under his left shoulder blade, tore through his chest and exited from his right shoulder, then ricocheted past his wife and two of their sons, finally lodging in the fireplace of the living room, where a third son was watching television.
About an hour later, the 52-year-old doctor was declared dead. [NYT article](see March 29, 2001)
Indiana/Medicaid funds
October 23, 2012: The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago upheld the core portion of a lower court order that said Indiana cannot enforce a state law barring abortion providers from collecting Medicaid funds for any medical services, i.e., Indiana can’t cut off funding for Planned Parenthood just because the organization provides abortions, a federal appeals. [NYT article]
Rape defended
October 23, 2012: the issue of pregnancies resulting from rape rattled another campaign for the Senate when Indiana’s Republican Senate nominee, Richard Mourdock, said a life conceived by rape “is something that God intended to happen” and must be protected. (NYT article) (see Dec 4)
October 23 Peace Love Art Activism
Technological Milestone
October 23, 2001: Apple Computer Inc. introduced the iPod portable digital music player. (seeApril 25, 2003).
October 23 Peace Love Art Activism
LGBTQ
October 23, 2012: New York’s highest court declined to hear a challenge to the state’s gay-marriage law, ending the only significant legal threat to same-sex weddings in the state. The Court of Appeals rejected a motion by a conservative group, New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, which had accused the State Senate of violating the state’s Open Meetings Law in its deliberations before it voted last year to allow gay men and lesbians to marry. The court did not provide an explanation of its decision. (NYT article) (see Nov 28)
October 23 Peace Love Art Activism
Trump Impeachment Inquiry
Disposition invasion
October 23, 2019: more than two dozen House Republicans, led by Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, delayed a deposition hearing in the ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump’s conduct regarding Ukraine.
Gaetz and the group marched into the secure facility at Capitol Hill, where House Democrats were scheduled to interview Pentagon official Laura Cooper, a witness in the probe. Cooper helps oversee U.S. policy regarding Ukraine at the Defense Department. Lawmakers had expected to ask her about the Trump administration’s decision to withhold military aid from the former Soviet nation. (see TII for expanded chronology)
October 23 Peace Love Art Activism
Space
October 23, 2020: the NASA’s OSIRIS-REX spacecraft collected such a large sampleof rock and dust that it’s created an unexpected problem.
Rocks were jammed in the device in a way that’s keeping a Mylar flap open, creating a gap that’s letting some of the collected pebbles and dust drift out into space.
“We had a successful sample collection attempt — almost too successful. Material is escaping,” said Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, the principal investigator for the mission. “We think we’re losing a small fraction of material, but it’s more than I’m comfortable with. I was pretty concerned when I saw these images coming in.” [NPR article] (next Space, see Nov 21)
October 23 Peace Love Art Activism
What's so funny about peace, love, art, and activism?
