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The Flowerz - Hey Joe (Garage Rock, Billy Roberts Cover)

4,816 views · Published 17 April 2011 · 2:41 · Indexed 26 September 2026

Channel: CoverVerse · 2011 · Music

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From '' Flyte ''
Label: Get Hip Recordings ‎– GHAS-5014
Format: Vinyl, LP, Compilation
Country: US
Released: 1998

Tracklist
A1 Flyte
A2 Ups & Downs
A3 Hey Joe
A4 Under My Thumb
A5 It's My Life
A6 Come On Down To My Boat
A7 Let's Spend A Night Together
A8 Heart Of Stone
B1 Talkin' About Love
B2 Gimme Some Lovin'
B3 Bend Me Shape Me
B4 Light My Fire
B5 My Sad Story
B6 All Day & All Of The Night
B7 He Was A Friend Of Mine
B8 Little Latin Lupe Lu
B9 WXAC Radio Promo

Notes
This includes both sides of their 1968 singles, plus an unreleased cut, surrounded by no less than 16 cover versions from a 1968 tape.


🎵 [SONG INFO]

"Hey Joe" is an American popular song from the 1960s that has become a rock standard and has been performed in many musical styles by hundreds of different artists.
"Hey Joe" tells the story of a man who is on the run and planning to head to Mexico after shooting his unfaithful wife.
The song was registered for copyright in the United States in 1962 by Billy Roberts.
However, diverse credits and claims have led to confusion about the song's authorship.
The earliest known commercial recording of the song is the late-1965 single by the Los Angeles garage band the Leaves; the band then re-recorded the track and released it in 1966 as a follow-up single which became a hit.
The best-known version is the Jimi Hendrix Experience's 1966 recording.
The song title is sometimes given as "Hey Joe, Where You Gonna Go?" or similar variations.

Authorship

While claimed by singer Tim Rose to be a traditional song, or often erroneously attributed to the pen of American musician Dino Valenti (who also went by the names Chester or Chet Powers, and Jesse Farrow), "Hey Joe" was registered for copyright in the U.S. in 1962 by Billy Roberts. Scottish folk singer Len Partridge has claimed that he helped write the song with Roberts when they both performed in clubs in Edinburgh in 1956. Other sources (including singer Pat Craig) claim that Roberts assigned the rights to the song to his friend Valenti while Valenti was in jail, in order to give him some income upon release.

Roberts was a relatively obscure California-based folk singer, guitarist, and harmonica player who performed on the West Coast coffeehouse circuit. He recorded the country rock album Thoughts of California with the band Grits in San Francisco in 1975, produced by Hillel Resner.

Roberts may have drawn inspiration for "Hey Joe" from three earlier works: his girlfriend Niela Miller's 1955 song "Baby, Please Don’t Go To Town" (which uses a similar chord progression based on the circle of fifths); Carl Smith's 1953 US country hit "Hey Joe!" (written by Boudleaux Bryant), which shared the title and the "questioning" format; and the early 20th century traditional ballad "Little Sadie", which tells of a man on the run after he has shot his wife.
The lyrics to "Little Sadie" often locate the events in Thomasville, North Carolina, and "down in" Jericho, South Carolina (a large rice plantation in the lowlands) Roberts was himself born in South Carolina.

Variations of "Little Sadie" have been recorded under various titles (including "Bad Lee Brown", "Penitentiary Blues", "Cocaine Blues", "Whiskey Blues") by many artists, including Clarence Ashley (1930), Johnny Cash (1960 and 1968), Slim Dusty (1961), and Bob Dylan (1970).

No documentary evidence has been provided to support the claim, by Tim Rose and others, that "Hey Joe" is a wholly traditional work. (See also the article "Morning Dew" regarding Rose and song copyrights.)

Rights to the song were administered from 1966 into the 2000s by the music publisher Third Story Music (now Third Palm Music); there the author is listed as Billy Roberts.

Selected list of recorded versions

Cher
Wilson Pickett
The Surfaris
Love 
The Byrds  
The Standells 
The Music Machine 
The Shadows of Knight 
Warlocks
Tim Rose
The Cryan' Shames 
Gonn 
The SoulBenders 
The Stillroven 
The Hazards 
Johnny Hallyday 
Martò 
Los Locos 
Ant Trip Ceremony 
The Golden Cups 
The Creation 
Marmalade 
The Mothers of Invention 
Johnny Rivers 
Band of Joy 
Fever Tree 
Lee Moses 
Carson 
The Les Humphries Singers 
Roy Buchanan
Spirit 
Suzie Hendrix
Alvin Lee
Buldožer 
Soft Cell 
"Weird Al" Yankovic 
Nash The Slash 
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds 
Dead Moon 
Francesco Di Giacomo 
Seal
The Offspring 
Willy DeVille 
Type O Negative 
Jerry Douglas 
Buckwheat Zydeco 
Roy Buchanan 
Body Count 
Eddie Murphy 
Captain Sensible 
Mathilde Santing 
Lick the Tins
Brazilian Band O Rappa 
Fifteen 
Otis Taylor 
The Make-Up 
Axel Rudi Pell 
Medeski Martin & Wood 
Franco Battiato 
Robert Plant 
Brant Bjork 
Gabe Dixon Band 
Cassie Steele 
Psychedelic Deja Vu
Guitar Shorty 
Arklio Galia 
Bap Kennedy 
Brown Sugar 
Josh Charles

The Jimi Hendrix Experience version appears in the following films:

Forrest Gump
Empire Records
Wayne's World 2
Death Sentence
Reaper
Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
Crooklyn

#theflowerz
#heyjoe 
#garagerock 
#billyroberts

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