Hey, Jimi, Where You Goin' with that Song Credit in your Hand?

If you haven't been following me all around the Internet for the past 10 years you may not have noticed that I'm an "All Along the Watchtower" Truther. Every time I see somebody refer to Jimi Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower", I pounce: It's a goddamn Bob Dylan song, people! (And yes I know Bob said Jimi's version was better than his, but Bob doesn't always know what he's talking about. There, I said it). It's especially aggravating when you consider Watchtower Bob's second greatest composition as I do. Anyway, I've come to accept this as my life's burden. Then I watched the new HBO movie O.G. And as the closing credits began to roll, screen captioning announced that what I was listening to was Pendleton Praise Team’s cover version of Jimi Henrdix’s Hey Joe". What in the hell? I knew "Hey Joe" was not Jimi Hendrix’s even though he made a masterful recording of it. He was not the songwriter, the copyright holder nor the first to record it. So how in the hell did it become his (of the 1800 other versions that exist!) to be covered?  It would be as if some local community theater group decided to cover “Olivier’s Hamlet”.  As distinctive as Hendrix may have been as an artist…he was mostly an interpretive artist…like Linda Ronstadt. Would anyone dare to say someone covered Ronstadt’s “It’s so Easy” or Ronstadt’s “Ooh Baby, Baby”?Admittedly certain artists put their indelible mark on certain works and end up having ownership of those works bestowed upon them by overenthusiastic fans and lazy critics. But for every musical genius who accrues credit where credit is not due, there’s a musical creator who remains ignored, overlooked or anonymous. Sinatra’s "My Way" is actually Paul Anka’s "My Way"…and more to the point Claude Francois and Jacques Revaux’s who wrote the original melody before Anka customized the lyrics for Sinatra.Dylan of course never has to worry about getting his due…especially with vigilant fans like me around to set the record straight. But Billy Roberts isn’t so fortunate. Roberts is acknowledged as the writer and copyright holder of "Hey Joe", although he, too, may have drawn inspiration from un-credited others. To Hendrix’s credit, he was the first to give Roberts credit for the song on his album Are You Experienced. Until then, authorship of the song was almost as disputed as who wrote Shakespeare’s plays…

While claimed by singer Tim Rose to be a traditional song,[8] 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.[5] 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.[5] 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.[9]

My 1966 Byrds' version lists C. [Chet] Powers as the songwriter…the same year that Hendrix recorded his more famous version…which led, decades later, to urban legend ownership of it being assigned to him, not Billy Roberts. Of all the rock stars that died tragically early, Hendrix may be the luckiest…with "Hey Joe", "All Along the Watchtower" and "Purple Haze" (excuse me while I kiss the sky)--none of which he wrote--in death he achieved songwriting status he never reached in life. Thank you for allowing me to vent…now I have a ballgame to watch. Before the first pitch, I'm guessing they’ll be playing the Marine Corps Marching Band’s cover of Hendrix’s "Star Spangled Banner".