The Reason Why Jimi Hendrix Recorded 'Hey Joe' [Highlight From Episode 303]

The story behind Jimi Hendrix's iconic rendition of "Hey Joe," as revealed by author Jason Schneider.

Listen to Episode 303: Jimi Hendrix's 'Hey Joe': The Story Behind Rock's Original Murder Ballad

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Here's a highlight from a recent episode of Booked on Rock.
Jason Schneider is the author of That Gun in Your Hand,
The strange song of Hey Joe in Popular Music's History
of Violence, The story of how Hey Joe lands on
Hendrix's radar. Okay, this is a great story. So he
heard the nineteen sixty sixth version by singer songwriter Tim Rose,
but I think he also had heard the Leaves version

(00:20):
at some point, but the tim Rose version is the one.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah, that's where the story gets really complicated, because yes.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
This is the amazing case of serendipity.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Even before that, so we have the West Coast version
of Hey Joe, which is popular. But then you've got
this guy on the East Coast named Tim Rose, struggling
singer songwriter, and he hears a version of Hey Joe
played by another Greenwich village artists.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
And this is just crazy, how many people were playing
that song?

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yeah, exactly. So tim Rose hears the song and he
claimed throughout his life that he never heard the song
before until he'd heard this other guy, Vince Martin play
it for him. So he said, so where to get
this song? Vince Martin couldn't tell him, so tim Rose
just kind of took it up. He created his own

(01:11):
arrangement of it, which was a little bit more slowed down,
a little bit more bluesy, and he ended up signing
a record deal with Columbia as well and recorded his
version of Hey Joe, which didn't really become a hit,
but it was just such a special according that even

(01:32):
the record label like, they pull out all the stops
to make it a hit, but they just couldn't make
it happen. So anyway, fast forward to the summer of
nineteen sixty six, Jimmy Hendrix is playing around Greenwich Village
with pickup bands. He's decided to turn his back on
being an R and B side man. He wants to
do his own thing. He's kind of struggling, and just

(01:54):
by happenstance, one night, the girlfriend of Keith Richards, a
woman named Linda Keith. She pops into a club where
Jimmy's playing, and just like anyone would be, she immediately
falls in love with him and they begin this really
kind of short intense relationship where Linda is firmly committed

(02:17):
that she needs to make Jimmy a star one way
or another. At this time the Rolling Stones are on tour,
so Keith Richards is kind of safely out of the picture.
One night in New York, Linda runs into the Animals
basis Chas Chandler, who tells her that he's about to
leave the band. He wants to move into record production

(02:39):
and management, and Linda says, well, if that's your plan,
you got to check out this guy, Jimmy Hendrix. He's
going to blow your mind. So part of Chad Chandler's
plan as well is that he's a fan of Tim
Rose's version of Hey Joe, and he wants to find
someone to record it so it could become a big
hit England. He's convinced it will. So Linda Keith has

(03:03):
absorbed all this information. She goes back to Jimmy and says, look,
I've invited Chaz Chandler to come see you, but something
you gotta do. You gotta play this song Hey Joe
for him. Chances are I'm almost certain Jimmy had no
idea what the song was, so he had to quickly
learn it. The next day, of course, Chas Chandler walks

(03:24):
into the club, Jimmy's up on stage. He starts playing
Hey Joe and the stars aligned