Hey Joe

Original by Billy Roberts, Cover by Jimi Hendrix

One of Jimi Hendrix’s best known and most loved songs, Hey Joe was originally written by the late Billy Roberts (1936-2017). Roberts’ music career began in the early 1960’s in New York’s Greenwich Village, where he played guitar, harmonica, and sang on the streets and in coffeehouses. It was there that he wrote the song Hey Joe, which he copyrighted in 1962. Roberts soon after made his way to California and was a part of the San Francisco music scene, playing in folk bands and opening for acts in clubs along the West Coast.

Roberts and his song were gaining fans all along the coast and in the Los Angeles music scene.

By the mid-1960’s several established bands in the area such as the Leaves and the Byrds had recorded and were performing their own versions of Hey Joe. But it was back in New York where producer Chas Chandler, ex-bassist for The Animals, found the perfect artist to record a rock version of the song.

Chandler had discovered Hendrix playing at the Cafe Wha? music club in Greenwich Village in 1966 and convinced him to travel to England to record. Hey Joe was released later that year as the first single by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Although the song peaked at No. 6 on the UK singles chart, Hey Joe failed to chart for Hendrix as a single in the US. Amazingly, cover versions of the song by Cher and Wilson Pickett did find their way onto the Billboard charts in the following years.

Billy Roberts as an artist never released Hey Joe as a single and didn’t include it on his only album, Thoughts of California, which came out in 1975. It’s fascinating to hear the recordings of him playing it though. In the earliest recorded versions, Roberts plays it in a traditional folk style. Although the lyrics are the same, the arrangement is almost unrecognizable compared to how the song would become known.

It was likely folk rock singer Tim Rose’s version of Hey Joe, which he recorded in 1966, that Chas Chandler heard and was what inspired Chandler to produce the rock version that Hendrix played and recorded. Of course Hendrix, as great artists do, took the song and made it his own.

I find it remarkable how a song can evolve over time through countless versions from countless artists and finally become known as one of the greatest rock songs by one of the greatest rock artists in music history.

It’s also interesting to note how several other of Hendrix’s best known hits, such as All Along The Watchtower and Like A Rolling Stone, also started as folk songs and then became such great rock songs when Hendrix played and recorded them. It really shows the power of how an artist’s unique style can change the trajectory of a great song. Cover versions become covers of covers over time, while the original version is left in obscurity and often unknown.