The Hidden Story Behind Who Actually Wrote “Hey Joe” by Jimi Hendrix

“Hey Joe” became a hit for Jimi Hendrix in 1967. And though he didn’t write it, the version he recorded with his band, The Experience, remains the definitive one. It wouldn’t be the last time a Hendrix cover outshone its original. Bob Dylan was so impressed with Hendrix’s reading of “All Along The Watchtower” that he reworked his own live performance of the song to match the cover. But finding the author of “Hey Joe” isn’t as easy as tracing a folk tune back to Dylan.

West Coast Garage Rock

The Leaves first released the song in 1965 under the title “Hey Joe, Where You Gonna Go”. They released another version the following year, this time calling it “Hey Joe”. But even before then, the song was a standard among garage rock groups in the 1960s. (The Leaves had discovered “Hey Joe” after seeing The Byrds perform it in Los Angeles.)

Hey Joe,
Where you going with that gun in your hand?
Hey Joe,
I said, Where you going with that gun in your hand?
I’m going down to shoot my old lady.
You know I caught her messing ’round with another man.

East Coast and Disputed Authorship

On the opposite coast, the folk singer Tim Rose performed a gentler version in Greenwich Village. Hendrix used Rose’s slower tempo as a blueprint for his iconic arrangement, which appears on Are You Experienced.

However, the song’s authorship remains disputed. Rose said it was a traditional tune, though the traditional origins are unclear.

Well, dig,
I’m going way down South,
Way down to Mexico way, all right.

I’m going way down South,
Way down where I can be free.

Meanwhile, Billy Roberts registered the copyright in 1962, and he’d been performing “Hey Joe” since the 1950s. But before then, singer Dino Valenti, of Quicksilver Messenger Service fame, claimed ownership. The drama continued when Roberts’ ex-girlfriend, Niela Halleck, said the song was hers. She called it “Baby, Please Don’t Go To Town”.

While the origins of “Hey Joe” remain opaque, here’s what we do know: few would recognize it without Hendrix’s explosive version.  

Photo by Ivan Keeman/Redferns