Willy DeVille
Hey Joe

Songs travel along invisible roads, holding the dust from the hourglass of time and the echo of the guitars that played them. Sometimes incomprehensible paths lead them to change their skin like snakes just to survive in a sunlit desert as well as in the smog of a European metropolis. Sometimes they even undergo genetic mutations just to remain alive in the collective imagination of different generations.

Now, in the collective imagination, "Hey Joe" is a song by Jimi Hendrix. No sir, this story of betrayal and death has more complex origins, starting from tradition and ending in a quarrel between Dino Valente (alias Chet Powers alias Jesse Oris Farrow alias Dino Valenti of Quicksilver Messenger Service) and the folk singer Billy Roberts to claim its rights. Originally, it was a folk song that spoke of Joe buying a gun to kill the woman who betrayed him, then fleeing to Mexico where a man can be free even after killing the unfaithful one.

In 1966, everybody recorded it, but the most faithful version was the slow one by folk singer Tim Rose (who had already stolen the rights to another song "Morning Dew" later made famous by the Grateful Dead), and it soon became an anthem for garage bands like the Standells who sped it up like crazy, and Jimi himself (who had heard Tim Rose sing it live) would help ignite the spirits of all of us with his rendition on "Are You Experienced?"

In short, after countless versions by both good and bad artists, mentioning a few in random order like Byrds, Shadow of Knight, Patti Smith, Cher, Nick Cave, Francesco Di Giacomo (!), Franco Battiato (!!), what on earth could Willy DeVille's version in the album "Backstreet Of Desire" from 1992 possibly tell us?  

That perhaps it is the one closest to the original spirit. Uno, dos, tres and the mariachi band that opens the dance might be exactly what Joe heard once he crossed the border with his hands still stained with blood, and Willy's singing seems unhurried, no progression but a laid-back Latin rhythm. There's always time in Mexico: mañana por la mañana and the days will always be the same with that trumpet that halfway through the song pushes through the guitars, the violins, the calls, the trills, and everything necessary to musically survive west of Sonora. Now "Backstreet of Desire" is a great album that (with the collaboration of talents like Dr. John, Zachary Richards, David Hidalgo) concludes that long journey made by Willy starting from the urban rock of CBGB's to arrive at Doc Pomus-style ballads. But in this rock, blues, soul, rhythm and blues, country saraband, the little tex-mex gem of "Hey Joe" stands out.

Willy died a few weeks ago and unfortunately, I don't believe in those beautiful stories we were told since we were kids about heaven and hell, but sometimes I wish it was all true. And, since I'm not a bad person, in a hundred years it would be nice to end up in heaven and find Willy there dressed in white with all his paraphernalia made of long hair with the Mohawk cut, big rings on his fingers and the golden tooth playing for eternity a cursed song like "Hey Joe": because up there the days are always the same...