Hey Joes
I like cover versions as I have probably stated many a time. Hey Joe seems one of the most covered songs I have in my collection, which are but a fraction of those that exist. And no-one really knows who wrote it, with even Tim Rose suggesting it be trad arr. Here are my favourites:
1.Jimi Hendrix- Probably the best known, and like All Along the Watchtower, many subsequent versions see this as the template over earlier models. Certainly my first known and the one where the ascending basslines in the chorus become almost the integral hook, even if in earlier versions, assuming Love predated.
2.10 Years After- Broadly a copy to allow Alvin Lee to stake his inevitable claim as being a better and faster guitarist. As with all 10YA, inaudible keyboards.Bassline: yes
3.Roy Buchanan- Slowed down, with yet more (top notch, admittedly) guitar histrionics. Bassline: yes
4.Otis Taylor- Recent, banjo blues. Bassline: obscured
5.Nick Cave-Slow gothic unlistenable claptrap. Deleted after this blog.Bassline: who cares, couldn't listen that long.
6.Mink deVille- Mariachi. Fabulous. Bassline: no
7.Love- Fast and furious garage rock. Bassline: yes
8.Jerry Douglas- Dobro led bluegrass. Marvellous. Bassline: yes
9. Deep Purple- Very odd indeed, imagine Conquistador/Procul Harum mixed with Bolero/ELP before it eventually gets going,relatively conventionally. Bassline: yes
10.Byrds- Tries to out garage Love's version. Hit that tincan one more time for me. Bassline: no
11.Buddy Guy- Effortless blues. Possibly the standout, despite bassline: only just.
12.Buckwheat Zydeco- This works well as a little changed standard version, as the accordion fits so well as the nominal lead instrument. Bassline: yes
13.Black Uhuru- Sort of. The bassline becomes the main riff. A grower.
14. Tim Rose- Came to this lately, despite some citing him as author. Not his 1967 version, which I can't track down. Odd baggy drum (machine?) sound, at odds with the ambience elsewhere. Bassline: not present
Any more notable versions?
Other songs much covered and worthy of a blow by blow?
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The Leaves
Fast and furious. Bassline, yes:
Whilst looking for The Leaves I found this Hendrixesque version by Spirit.
Woh!
The Leaves! Never heard or seen that one or them before. Shame their Dad, in the middle, refused to grow his hair a bit. And the Call and Response vocals are a natural extension, given the lyric.
This might interest you
Wilson Pickett's version sounds interesting. Hope someone hasn't confused it with Hey Jude...
http://hypem.com/search/hey%20joe/1/
I have versions of Hey Joe by...
Blind Faith - Hyde Park bootleg. Not one to trouble the scorers.
Carbon/Silicon - with Patti Smith at Meltdown. Not bad at all.
Jimi - lots, obviously. BBC sessions worth a listen.
Nick Cave - see Retro's comments above.
Robert Plant - on Dreamland and 66 to Timbuktu. Definitely worth a listen.
Patti Smith - inimitable Patti style.
Byrds - at Monterey (Jimi as well!)
The Leaves - on Nuggets. Very Garage and, I have to say, awful. (sorry Doctor)
Pick of the bunch - give Robert Plant's version a listen.
Not surprising but...
...no-one's mentioned the version by Marmalade (b-side to Lovin' Things, their first single). And their big no 1 was a cover too Ob la de Ob la di - a disk I inherited from one of my bigger brothers when still only a nipper...
Oh, and further to Spirit doing it... Randy California did a cover on the "Night of the Guitars - live!" CD and DVD.
Oh, and by lucky hap...
...when I did the iTunes search that gave rise to the above list, it threw up:
'They Caught The Devil And Put Him In Jail In Eudora, Arkansas'
By Tony Joe White.
You see what happened there?
But my, it's good.
Using SkreemR Mp3 search engine...
Gave me lots of choices. A number of them were singing a different song called Hey Joe. The Hey Joe under consideration had versions attributed to Jerry Douglas, Robert Plant, Randy California, the Golden Cups and the wonderfully named Helge and the Firefuckers.
And to address the second part of the question....
...I give you the best song ever written, by.....
Aretha Franklin
The Commitments
Elvis Costello
DAN PENN
DAN PENN & SPOONER OLDHAM
The Flying Burrito Brothers
Gregg Allman
JAMES CARR
Kevin Mahogany
Lazy Lester
Linda Ronstadt
Percy Sledge
Richard & Linda Thompson
Rico Bell, and...
Ry Cooder.
Dark End of the Street, of course.
And there are three versions in capitals, for a reason. They are the best of the best.
Perhaps not in capitals but. . .
surely Percy Sledge, Aretha and Ry Cooder deserve italics or something.
They surely do.
Good call.
Frank Black
Jonathan Ross played a version by Frank Black last Saturday, pretty good it was too.
Dan Penn
I love it how on the live album Moments From This Theatre, Dan Penn says that people are always asking him whose is his favourite version of Dark End Of The Street. "As if there was any other than James Carr's..."
Well...
...we disagree on The Leaves, but we're as one on Tony Joe White.
Edit:
This should have been posted as a reply to Paul Waring's second post.
Louie Louie
There are three compilation albums devoted to versions of Louie Louie that I know of.
Louie Louie 2
Don't know how true it is but I read recently that Louie Louie had overtaken Yesterday as the most recorded song in history.
My ipod has five versions.
The Kingsmen
Richard Berry (the original I suppose)
Stooges
Julie London
Rice Marching Band (I got it off a novelty song compilation)
I've only got three Hey Joes so guess it is true
Hendrix
Patti Smith
The Leaves
Never mind the quantity.......
I wouldn't have any version of Yesterday in my house, so cloying and ghastly do I find it. Funnily enough, it seems to be the George Harrison songs that convert best to covers from the "fabs", viz Here Comes the Sun and (provided caution around some) Something.
There is a superb Zydeco version of Louie Louie on a Michel Doucet album called Cajun Brew. Richard Thompson and Sonny Landreth, tho' not on that track, guest on the disc.
"Hey Brother" by The Voices of East Harlem
The wonderful gospel group The Voices of East Harlem did a rough version of "Hey Joe" which appears as a bonus track on their 1970 album "Right On Be Free". It's called "Hey Brother". The lyrics include "Hey brother, where you goin' with that stick in your hand?" (which sounds rather quaint, don't you think?)
I urge everyone to get this album if they haven't got it already; it's as uplifting as gospel gets. For individual tracks try "Simple Song of Freedom", "Proud Mary" or "Music in the Air".
http://tinyurl.com/4rs6kb
Right on.
Wilson Pickett
I can confirm that Wicked Wilson did indeed record Hey Joe, as well as Hey Jude, as I have both on a compilation. Both are terrific.
Chuck Berry
Around and Around got around a bit. Bowie b-side for Drive in Saturday, Flamin' Groovies - extra track on Teenage Head CD, Grateful Dead, Maureen Tucker from Velvet Underground and my favourite would probably be by Rolling Stones (OK not a great deal of competition, aside from the original, anyway it's a good excuse to post this great old clip, which features a typical jokey Pathe newsreel style intro):
Thanks...
...for posting this. It was taken down shortly after I first saw it on You Tube. Great to see it again.
HEY JOES - a couple of suggestions
I have been collecting Hey Joe versions from around the world & Retropath2's list is great - glad to see Mink DeVille, Roy Buchanan & Robert Plant mentioned there. These are definitely favs of mine.
I would like to also bring your attention to what I feel is one of the best, if not the best, 'Hey Joe' version ever! It is by 60s Japanese band GOLDEN CUPS. It has everything - great production, fast tempo, FANTASTIC bass run using some middle-eastern passing scales, fuzz guitar & a 3-mn long freakout passage. Check it out on the garagehangover.com website.
Apart from 'Louie Louie', I offer to the floor a couple more songs much covered & possibly worthy of mention: 'Batman' & 'It's All Over Baby Blue'.
Cheers,
T.
Never heard The Golden Cups...
...until just now. Read your post, checked You Tube...and here it is. Marvellous stuff. Thanks for the tip.
Another suggestion for consideration: Stagger Lee
That could easily come from 1975, any sweaty dive in....
...any sweaty british city. Even down to the lyric sung with no knowledge of english as she is spoke.
Thanks for the great response: Leaves, Golden Cups, Robert Plant and Spirit (even tho' the video has been removed, I know it will be good) will have to be sought on MP3.
Surprised no mention, other than my oblique reference, to Watchtower. 19 versions and counting. Dark End is a good one, I think I have most of those. (Another shout for the Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham live CD, as well) Dimming of the Day has about 10 credible versions, which must help keep RT in berets.
Only because I now feel duty bound, I can find no Bonzo's covers, although there is that reverse concept, with a record of the originals of such staples as Hunting Tigers out in India(h). Neither Supertramp. There are, however, a couple of versions of Alone Again, Naturally......... Michael Weston King, never really a cheery chappie at the best of times, slits his wrists very mournfully thereto. Better by far is a version by Lori Cullen, canadian jazz-lite singer.
Spirit's Hey Joe
I didn't notice when I posted via the url that embedding is not allowed. If you go to this page you'll be able to watch it.
Thanks.
Was it the live version I was suppoesed to see? I liked it, but I like Spirit, when not getting too carried away with some of the more outre bits of Dr Sardonicus (perhaps, Robert, your surname?)
Yes...
...it was the live version.
Actually
I really really enjoyed that version by Spirit. I think it shows a certain amount of balls to play with the teeth on hendrix's 'home turf' as it were!
Also reminded me of how good a three man band can sound live....
Spirit's
version is good. My favourites are:
1. Jimi
2. Willy DeVille
3. Spirit
Nick Cave's version is not his finest moment.
Like a rolling stone
Off at a tangent, but Spirit's version of LARS from the same Spirit Of 76 album is a corker too.
Golden Cups
Just found that Golden cups version too - fantastic stuff - that bass is just great - now just need to track down the downloadeable copy and it's wig-out ahoy!
Nature Boy
A friend of mine collects versions of Nature Boy.
Off hand, I particularly like the James Brown, George Benson and Sun Ra versions but there are TONS.
Gimme Shelter
I don't have a welter of shelter in my collection. But the three I do have are all very different and all very good:
- Rolling Stones (of course)
- Sisters Of Mercy
- Inspiral Carpets
I think I'll have a look for some more versions. Could this be an unruinable song?
Versions for charity
There are a couple of these. They ruined the unruinable I think you'll find.
Satisfaction
Some good ones, and varied. Otis Redding, Television (live)and Devo - all very different. There may be more.
You must hear this version of Gimme Shelter
Merry Clayton's solo version, having sang on the original two years earlier.
http://berkeleyplace.wordpress.com/2008/01/11/cover-wars-2-bruce-vs-the-...
Grand Funk Railroad
They covered it on their album Survival. Dreadful racket. It's more than 30 years since I heard it but I advise that you'd do better to steer clear of it, Simon.
"Walk On By" - a bizarre love triangle
I once taught a music lesson based around three versions of "Walk On By" - Dionne Warwick, Isaac Hayes and the Stranglers. I wanted three completely disparate, genre-spanning versions of the same song and that fitted the bill better than any other I could think of. (Can anyone think of just, say, 3-5 versions of one song that straddle such extreme styles so well? Which are the three most different versions of Hey Joe?)
"Light My Fire " would probably work well too - erm... Doors, Feliciano, Bassey.
I've got two volumes of bossa nova versions of Stones songs - patchy quality though.
Stand By Me
There's the Ben E King original, Ry Cooder's Tex-Mex version and John Lennon's Rock And Roll version.
Muhammed Ali did a version as well:
If you want a fourth
that is completely different to either of those three, try the Massive Attack-affiliated Smith & Mighty's, which you can hear a clip of here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/DJ-Kicks-Smith-Mighty/dp/B0000060BQ
Handbags and Gladrags
Quite a few versions of this knocking around: Mike D'Abo, Chris Farlowe, The Love Affair, Rod Stewart, The Rationals, The Stereophonics...
Nickels, Games and Readies
It's hard to find a bad cover version of any of these three soul standards, and a good number of each fall well within the perimeter of Dead Proper:
A Nickel and a Nail - O.V. Wright, Otis Clay, Little Milton, Roy Buchanan. . .
Games People Play - Bettye Lavette, Joe South, Duane Allman & King Curtis. . .
People Get Ready Aretha Franklin, Maceo Parker (instr.), The Meters, Al Green, Blind Boys of Alabama. . .
Walker Brothers'
version of People Get Ready is one of Mrs Muggs's all-time favourites, and deservedly so.
The definitive version of People Get Ready
In my opinion, is by The Everly Brothers on their 1965 album Beat & Soul.
hallelujah
Never heard of hey joes but will spent some valuable research time finding out about it
I always thought that Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah was the one with all the cover versions (Jeff Buckley , Rufus Wainwright, John Cale, Willie Nelson, Susanna & Magic Orchestra, Bono, KD Lang) so I stand corrected
Genre wise - Always on my mind (Elvis, Willie Nelson, Pet Shop Boys, Ryan Adams & Cardinals) are all great
What's So Funny About Peace Love & Understanding
I just came across a version of this on my PC by Lucy Kaplansky (it's OK I don't know who she is either or where I got it from).
This must be the most famous song Elvis Costello didn't write (but everyone thought he did).
Of the top of my head I have versions by Nick Lowe & Brinsley Schwarz (of course), EC, Ms Kaplansky, Steve Earle, The Flaming Lips and Keb' Mo'
The Holmes Brothers
Try the Holmes Brothers' version of "What's so funny...", off their album "State of Grace". It's a brilliant soul version.
DJ GREEN LANTERN
Uses HEY JOE to remix Fort Minor's "Bleach" and it contains a Sopranos sample too.
It's On WE MAJOR -FORT MINOR/DJ GREEN LANTERN MIXTAPE
Who hasn't but ought to?
So now we know who's Joed, it's surely time for us to start suggesting additions to the pantheon: those who haven't yet covered Hey Joe but ought to.
I for one would like to hear versions by:
- Daft Punk
- The White Stripes (possibly with a guest bass player)
- The Foo Fighters (always turn in a good cover)
- Bjork
Hey Joe
Just about the only version of this song I can bear to listen to is the brilliantly slow, moody and intense version by the Music Machine on their first album.
Hey Joe: the truth...
Retropath isn't correct in saying no-one knows who wrote 'Hey Joe'. I wrote a book on Bert Jansch a few years ago, republished in 2006, and among the interviewees was Bert's early guitar mentor, one Len Partridge - a local legend in 50s/early 60s Edinburgh who never recorded professionally. Bert recalled 'Hey Joe' being in his repertoire years before he heard the Hendrix record and reckoned he must have learned it from Len. I interviewed Len - a very dignified, cautious man, not at all given to self-aggrandisment - and included his recollections of essentially co-writing the song with one Bill Roberts in Edinburgh in the mists of time as footnote 42 of Chapter 3 (yes, I've just gone and checked...). Funny thing is, in the invidious tradition of the song's copyright history, my footnote material was pretty much lifted and turned into a small 'story of the song' feature by some guy in The Independent a year or two afterwards, source uncredited. So it goes... Anyway, here's said footnote:
42. The writing credits for ‘Hey Joe' are a complex issue. Currently claimed in terms of arrangement by Tim Rose, it was nevertheless recogniseable to Len Partridge in its 1966 Jimi Hendrix version as the song he had helped write with Bill Roberts in Edinburgh 10 years earlier. There was a coffee bar in Old Fishmarket Close called Bunjies, named after the London premises of the same name. Around 1956, shortly after Len had acquired his 12-string guitar, a friend of Len's discovered the place and reported the presence of an American playing there, also with a 12-string guitar. ‘So there was this guy, dressed in black from, I think, Knoxville, Tennessee' says Len, ‘and we ended up, of course, two like minds with two 12 strings, at a time when there are only two others you know of in the world! [ie. Leadbelly and Cyril Davies] We played quite a lot together but only at Bunjies or the odd party, because there was nowhere else to play. And one of the things which came out of that period was ‘Hey Joe'. I can't claim credit for it - that really does have to go to Bill Roberts. Don't even ask me now what bits were added by me because I can't tell you, it just evolved, it was one of those things you chucked around. This is the thing: if somebody asked me how many songs I'd written I'd find it very difficult to come up with more than two or three titles and yet there must have been lots that just happened and were soon discarded. You never thought about it. We weren't professional - or we certainly didn't have any bloody foresight. Luckily, when Bill Roberts went back to the States he at some point must have copyrighted it. Bill wasn't credited on the original Hendrix release but his name did appear later. It's one of those things which some people have said ‘Do you not feel a bit miffed about that?' But I don't think I've anything to feel miffed about.'
Best Covers
Smells Like Teen Spirit - The Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain
Van the Man
Van Morrison's Gloria has taken on a life of its own! Patti Smith certainly added her own twist to Hey Joe and Love Will Tear Us Apart is becoming an industry.
Talking of Beatles covers the only song of theirs Sinatra performed was George's Something but he believed it was an L&M song!
This just in.......
A very late entry.
Christine Tobin, who is a lady jazz chantoozy, and does some interesting covers, including God Only Knows, All I Really Wanna Do and various Cohens, does a Hey Joe that is way outfield of the competition, bearing little, if any, relation to the original, bar the lyrics. A tone poem vocal, strangely beguiling, shimmys over a backing, with nary a hint of that ascending/descending bassline, with sudden inputs of Hendrix plays Hot Rats guitar.
Likeably odd.