Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Department of Old News Department

From 1967 and his eponymous debut album, please enjoy bluesguy and folkie Tim Rose and the version of "Hey Joe" that may or may not have inspired Jimi Hendrix to glom the arrangement and thus garner his first English chart hit.




I am embarrassed to admit that although I had heard of this, I had never actually heard it until yesterday. In any case, it's pretty good, I think, and if this is in fact the record that inspired Jimi, you can certainly hear why. On the other hand, he may have poached his version from The Creation, who were reportedly playing an almost identical arrangement in Brit clubs for months before the Experience single.



As you can hear, The Creation's album version is indeed the Hendrix record almost note for note, but it wasn't actually released until much later.

Jeebus, I'm exhausted just thinking about this stuff. And don't even get me started on the song's tangled authorship....