From the controversy over its authorship to the many artists who crafted their own unique versions of it, the long and winding history of the song “Hey Joe” unfolds like a great murder mystery. Now its journey through generations of musicians and musical genres, and what this song says about America’s seeming obsession with guns, crimes of passion and our desire to be “where a man can be free,” is profiled in a fascinating new book by Jason Schneider: That Gun in Your Hand: The Saga of ‘Hey Joe’ and Popular Music’s History of Violence (Anvil Press).
Like Dave Marsh’s 1993 classic on the history of the frat rock classic, “Louie Louie,” Schneider has crafted a true page-turner, one told through his mind-bending exploration of more than a dozen versions of the song, including psych-rock era takes by The Leaves, Love, The Byrds, Deep Purple and, of course, Jimi Hendrix to soul legend Wilson Pickett, punk goddess Patti Smith and reggae masters Black Uhuru to French actress/synth chanteuse Charlotte Gainsbourg and Ice-T’s infamous rap/metal band Body Count. As stated by Lenny Kaye in the book’s introduction, Schneider traces not only each performer’s unique musical approach to the song, but also “the inner complexities and contradictions that each artist brings to it, subject and subjective.”
Schneider begins by putting the song in context with others that inspired it, from old English murder ballads like “Pretty Polly” to its widely covered American predecessors, “Stack-O-Lee” and “Frankie and Johnny,” tunes popular in the first half of the 20th century based on real-life killings. He also notes, “I’m Gonna Murder My Baby.” This was a 1954 hit by Pat Hare, a singer who would actually go on to murder his baby in real life and spend the last sixteen years of his life in prison.
“Hey Joe” was penned by an obscure singer/guitarist, Billy Roberts, a South Carolina native who picked up a trick or two from legendary bluesmen Reverend Gary Davis and Sonny Terry before heading to New York in 1959 to be a part of the Greenwich Village folk scene. Roberts and the story of his classic tune would be closely tied to another ‘60s songwriter, Dino Valenti (aka Chet Powers and Jesse Farrow). Valenti would be running buddies with Roberts in NYC, then travel with him to Europe in 1962 in hopes of getting signed to a record label, just like their Village associate Rambling Jack Elliot. Though Roberts would copyright “Hey Joe” in January 1962, it’s Valenti who would help to popularize it via his performances in Greenwich Village clubs, along with the even better-known classic he wrote, “Get Together,” which would become a #5 hit in 1969 via The Youngbloods cover. When Valenti was signed as a songwriter with Third Story Music in June 1966, he copyrighted the song himself. It is only after the tune became a Top 40 hit by The Leaves that Roberts would secure an attorney to claim his rightful royalties. By that time, it was a seeming staple of every West Coast band, including Love, The Byrds, The Standells, The Music Machine, The Shadows of the Night, and many more. Why, even Cher cut a spirited take on her 1967 solo album, With Love, Cher.
It was the version by Tim Rose that set the stage for Jimi Hendrix’s take, the most famous and lasting version of the tune. It was Rose who would slow the tempo, add the renowned turnaround riff, and sub out the word “money” for “gun” in the first line of the song (“Hey Joe, where you going with that gun in your hand”) to add more sting. When manager-to-be Chas Chandler first saw Hendrix at the Café Wha? in New York, he was intent on launching Jimi’s career with a cover of this song. Per Schneider, Jimi’s take “implicitly perpetuated the myth of the Black outlaw at a crucial moment in the history of American race relations.” The author uses this opportunity to elaborate on other tunes reflecting America’s love affair with guns, like Hendrix’s “Machine Gun” and “Izabella,” Neil Young’s “Down by the River” and the Rolling Stones’ “Street Fighting Man.” Naturally, the song became a popular cover for the British bands that idolized the newly arrived American guitarist. Deep Purple would take a unique approach to it on their debut album – a seven-and-a-half-minute opus, complete with a police siren intro segueing into a snazzy Spanish bolero. At the same time, the mod pop act, The Creation, would craft an almost note-for-note recreation.
Frank Zappa would go on to parody the tune and the hippie movement itself with his “Flower Punk.” It was a centerpiece of Zappa’s We’re On in it For the Money album, which used the chords and melody of “Hey Joe” with new lyrics that would “hammer home its point about how countless bands had attempted to cash in on the song’s popularity” and the fakeness of the hippie movement in general. In his cover, Wilson Pickett would attempt to repeat the success of his recent take on “Hey Jude.” At the same time, a lesser-known but equally great soul singer, Lee Moses, would wax an even more arresting version, one that would remain in the vaults until its release by Light In the Attic Records in 2007. The author also discusses the shred-fueled covers by two guitar greats, the legendary axe man Roy Buchanan’s studio and the superior live version, and one from Spirit, whose guitarist Randy California was a teenage member of Hendrix’s pre-fame group in the Village during 1966.
One of the more singular covers came from punk poetess Patti Smith. Recorded at her first studio session in 1974, it contains a lengthy spoken word diatribe about Patty Hearst, the heiress kidnapped by a black revolutionary group who participated in a famous bank robbery with her abductors. Like the fictional Joe, this Patty is on the run with a gun, just hoping to escape to freedom. With his critique of the cover by Body Count, the metal/rap group founded by Black Sabbath-loving Ice-T, the author takes one of his interesting historical detours. Here, he discusses how rap lyricists came to reflect the real-life violence in urban communities, beginning with Grandmaster Flash’s “The Message,” through NWA’s Straight Outta Compton to Ice-T and Body Count’s own “Cop Killer.”
The author continues chronicling other unique interpretations of the song, from Charlotte Gainsbourg’s lighter-than-air take, produced by Beck for the Nymphomaniac soundtrack, to British synth-pop hitmakers Soft Cell’s 1983 inclusion in their three-song Hendrix medley. Also covered is the remarkably dark, Gothic version from that murder ballad connoisseur, Nick Cave, along with takes by Willy DeVille, Seal, Buckwheat Zydeco, and the Brazilian alt-rockers O Rappa.
Schneider’s book concludes with an epilogue that provides details on the mysterious life of Billy Roberts, whose death in 2017 went largely unnoticed by the press. One of the best expressions of the tune’s lasting power might be the Guinness World Record event, where 7,967 guitarists performed the song together in Krakow, Poland, in May 2023.
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