No. 66: ‘Hey Joe’ by Jimi Hendrix

“Hey Joe” seems like it’s been around since the frontier days, but when Jimi Hendrix recorded that tale of a revenge and murder, it was only 5 years old or so.

In that short time, “Hey Joe” — aka “Hey Joe, Where You Gonna Go” — had been covered by the Leaves, Love, the Byrds, the Music Machine, the Shadows of Knight and the Standells, along with every garage band on your old block.

The Leaves hit the charts with their third recording of the number, in 1966, although the year before the song had spread like wildfire through the California rock scene.

Most sources agree that the author was U.S. folkie Billy Roberts, who holds the copyright. The singer-songwriter Dino Valenti was credited as the author on some recordings, although that may have been with Roberts’ blessing.

Tim Rose, who probably started the fiction that “Hey Joe” was a traditional song, took to playing “Hey Joe” as a slow burner. Rose, too, claimed partial songwriting credit.

Hendrix’s version credits Roberts as the writer, but in the liner notes the guitarist calls it “a blues arrangement of an old cowboy song that’s about 100 years old.” Hendrix probably was joking, but it added another red herring to the “Hey Joe” saga. (Read all about the clusterfuck that is “Hey Joe’s” history.)

Tim Rose’s version of “Hey Joe” probably inspired Hendrix to make it part of his act before going to England — the Rose and Hendrix versions are similar in pace, arrangement and vocal backing.

Slowing down high-speed rockers and making them “heavy” was a staple technique of psychedelic rock in those years (see Iron Butterfly, Vanilla Fudge and Blue Cheer), so Hendrix could have have gotten there on his own.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s “Hey Joe” opens as a straightforward blues, with Hendrix alternating his vocal delivery a tad to emphasize the question-and-answer format. The female backup singers are fairly hot in the mix, at the request of the guitarist, still trying to find his voice as a frontman.

For the first half, Mitch Mitchell’s drums and Noel Redding’s bass simply keep the beat. As the song moves forward the drumming becomes increasingly aggressive, a suggestion, perhaps, that Joe is starting to lose it. This is a conversation, after all, with a murderer fresh from the kill.

At the 1:40 minute-mark, “Hey Joe” morphs into an Experience song, as Mitchell’s now-busy playing reaches full speed and Redding delivers the signature bass line (used by most bands from “Hey Joe’s” beginning). Hendrix issues a fluid solo, short and simple.

By song’s end, head-banging is in full effect.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s “Hey Joe” of 1966 remains by far the best-known versions of the song, and certainly one of the best. It appeared on the first Experience album in the States as the third track on side 1. In England, “Hey Joe” was the group’s first single (b/w “Stone Free” in December 1966) and as such wasn’t included on the album (as with many Beatles hits). The U.K. omission was made right in the CD era.

Like most of Hendrix’s top songs, “Hey Joe” found its way into several movies and TV series, including “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.” “Forrest Gump,” “Wayne’s World 2,” “The Wild Life” and “Crooklyn.”

No. 41: ‘EXP,’ ‘Up From the Skies’

“A rather peculiar-looking gentleman” arrives for a radio interview.

When asked to comment about “this nonsense about space ships and even space people,” he responds by melting, elevating, transforming, transcending … and then departing on the intergalactic vessel cloaked as Jimi Hendrix’s guitar.

After all the sonic fireworks, another alien addresses mankind on the topic of our planet, this time bopping along on a relaxed jazz beat:

“I just want to talk to you, I won’t do you no harm.
I just want to know about your different lives,
on this here people farm.”

So begins the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s second album, “Axis: Bold as Love.”

In May 1967, Hendrix’s first album was released, quite likely the most startling record debut in history. The left-handed guitarist immediately become one of the biggest stars in rock. Seven months later came the hugely anticipated “Axis.”

The radio skit, “EXP,” opened the album, a 1:55 prelude to “Up From the Skies.” Drummer Mitch Mitchell and Hendrix play the talk show host and alien, respectively. As Hendrix’s extraterrestrial speaks (“You just can’t believe everything you see and hear … can you?”), his voice slows to a slur as the effects-drenched guitar swirl begins, chasing itself from speaker to speaker.

As the turmoil subsides, we’re left with another major surprise from Hendrix: “Up From the Skies” begins immediately, with a sprightly Mose Allison jazz feel. Mitchell plays cocktail lounge-friendly brushes on his drums. Hendrix’s guitar streams through a wah-wah pedal, no doubt a first for jazz rock (pretty much an oxymoron in ’67). The song was recorded two days before Halloween 1967.

The cosmic one-two punch of “EXP” and “Up From the Skies” was an early sighting in what was later dubbed “Alien rock.”

Hendrix’s mystical qualities included a good deal of prescience, as “Up From the Skies” anticipates the eco-nightmares to come — this a year before the release of “The Whole Earth Catalog”:

“I have lived here before, the days of ice.
And of course this is why I’m so concerned,
And I come back to find,
the stars misplaced and the smell of a world that has burnt.
The smell of a world that has burnt.”

“Up From the Skies” has inspired a galaxy of covers, including those by Rickie Lee Jones, Gilberto Gil, Joan Jett, Kenny Rankin, jazzmaster Gil Evans and various crossover classical outfits such as the String Quartet.

Hendrix continued to use his alien as a narrator for songs and sometimes told friends he was sent to Earth from another place. Who’s to say?

Further reading: “Room Full of Mirrors: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix.”
“Up From the Skies” chords

“Up From the Skies” lyrics, by Jimi Hendrix

I just want to talk to you, I won’t do you no harm.
I just want to know about your different lives,
on this here people farm.
I heard some of you got your families,
living in cages tall and cold,
And some just stay there and dust away, past the age of old.
Is this true? Please let me talk to you.
I just want to know about the rooms behind your minds,
Do I see a vacuum there, or am I going blind?
Or is it just a remains from vibrations and echoes long ago,
Things like ‘Love the world’ and ‘Let your fancy flow’,
Is this true? Please let me talk to you.
Let me talk to you.
I have lived here before, the days of ice.
And of course this is why I’m so concerned,
And I come back to find,
the stars misplaced and the smell of a world that has burnt.
The smell of a world that has burnt.

Yeah, well maybe, maybe it’s just a change of climate.
I can dig it, I can dig it baby. I just want to see.

So where do I purchase my ticket,
I just like to have a ringside seat.
I want to know about the new Mother Earth,
I want to hear and see everything (3x)
Yeah. Aw, shucks, If my daddy could see me now