Jimi Hendrix – Hey Joe

The Café Wha? Performance That Changed Everything, Played With His Teeth

Released on December 16, 1966, in the UK and May 1, 1967, in the United States, “Hey Joe” peaked at number six on the UK Singles Chart in January 1967 but failed to chart in America despite being Hendrix’s debut single with the Jimi Hendrix Experience. The British success launched Hendrix’s career internationally while his homeland ignored him completely. For a song that had already been recorded by The Leaves, Love, and The Byrds in uptempo versions, Hendrix’s slower, more menacing arrangement became the definitive interpretation. The track that convinced Chas Chandler to bring an unknown guitarist from Greenwich Village to London and turn him into a superstar started with a jukebox in a New York club and ended with a guitar solo played with teeth.

The single spent several weeks in the UK top ten and sold strongly across Europe, though American radio programmers showed zero interest. Billy Roberts had copyrighted the song in 1962, but by 1966 at least four different artists were claiming authorship or calling it traditional. The Leaves reached number 31 on the Billboard Hot 100 with their version in early 1966, while Cher’s cover stalled at number 94 later that year. Tim Rose recorded a slower folk arrangement in late 1966 that inspired both Chandler and Hendrix. Arthur Lee of Love claimed his band’s version turned Hendrix onto the song, though Hendrix had been hearing various arrangements around Greenwich Village clubs for months before recording his own take.

Hendrix first heard Tim Rose’s slower arrangement on a jukebox while performing with Jimmy James and the Blue Flames at venues like Café Wha? in Greenwich Village during summer 1966. He immediately incorporated it into their setlist, replacing the faster tempo versions he’d been hearing around the folk scene. On the night Chas Chandler attended the show, Linda Keith had reconnected with the former Animals bassist and played him Rose’s version. Chandler told Guitar Player magazine he wanted to find an act to record a full rock version in England. By chance, the first song Hendrix performed when Chandler walked into Café Wha? was this exact track. When Hendrix played the solo with his teeth, Chandler knew instantly this was the artist he’d been seeking. The next day, Chandler made arrangements to bring Hendrix to London.

Producer Chas Chandler recorded the track at De Lane Lea Studios in London on October 23, 1966, with engineer Dave Siddle capturing over thirty takes in just two hours, the maximum Chandler could afford. Hendrix performed with his brand new backing band, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, featuring converted guitarist Noel Redding on bass and former Georgie Fame drummer Mitch Mitchell. The Breakaways, a popular vocal trio consisting of Jean Hawker, Margot Newman, and Vicki Brown, provided backing vocals, one of the few Hendrix tracks to feature female harmonies. Chandler moved the master tape between three different studios in early November trying to get the backing vocals right, nearly destroying the one-inch four-track master in the process. Hendrix wanted his vocals buried in the mix, insisting the guitar should be the focus, while Chandler fought to bring the voice forward after discovering during rehearsals that Hendrix’s vocals were far stronger than the guitarist believed.

The song appeared on the 1967 debut album Are You Experienced?, which became one of the most influential rock records ever released. The liner notes described it as a blues arrangement of an old cowboy song about one hundred years old, though this was more romantic myth than historical fact. Billy Roberts had busked the song on Greenwich Village streets in the late 1950s before moving to San Francisco, where he performed it regularly at coffee houses. He never recorded it himself until 1975 when he finally released Thoughts of California with the band Grits. The copyright confusion persisted for decades, with some claiming Niela Horn Miller wrote the melody as “Baby, Please Don’t Go to Town” around 1955 before dating Billy Roberts, who allegedly adapted her composition without credit. Roberts received copyright ownership in 1962, two years before Horn Miller copyrighted her version.

The track has been covered by over one thousand artists including Deep Purple, Patti Smith, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Robert Plant, and Eddie Murphy. Hendrix performed it as the closing song at Woodstock on Monday morning, August 18, 1969, when most attendees had already left and the festival ran hours past its scheduled midnight Sunday conclusion. Wilson Pickett took his version to number 59 on the Hot 100 in 1969, the only other artist besides The Leaves and Cher to chart with the song in America during the 1960s. The Creation, a British band, recorded their own slower version around the same time as Hendrix, though it wasn’t released until after his version became a hit. Some accounts credit their arrangement as influencing Hendrix, though the timeline suggests they may have all been drawing from Tim Rose’s folk interpretation.

Sometimes the right song finds the right artist at the exact right moment. Hendrix could have been playing anything when Chandler walked into that Greenwich Village club, but he was playing this, the song Chandler had been obsessing over after hearing Rose’s version. He could have played it conventionally, but he played the solo with his teeth, turning what could have been another blues cover into something dangerous and electric. The British recognized what Americans couldn’t see, launching a career that would tilt rock music on its axis within a year. That slow arrangement, that squealing guitar solo, those backing vocals Chandler fought three studios to capture, all of it came together because a bassist from The Animals heard a folk singer on a jukebox and decided to find someone who could make it explode. Sometimes destiny is just being in the right place playing the right song when the right person walks through the door.