Curtis Knight

If he is known at all, the Harlem-based '60s soul singer Curtis Knight is remembered for his connection to a pre-fame <a href="spotify:artist:776Uo845nYHJpNaStv1Ds4">Jimi Hendrix</a>. Knight met a down-on-his-luck <a href="spotify:artist:776Uo845nYHJpNaStv1Ds4">Hendrix</a> living in a New York City hotel. The singer gave the guitarist a spare axe and hired him to play with the Squires, Knight's band. A native of Kansas, Knight had previously spent time in California -- he appears in the film Pop Girl -- before relocating to New York, where he worked the circuit with the Squires, a workaday party R&B band. It's quite possible Knight saw something in <a href="spotify:artist:776Uo845nYHJpNaStv1Ds4">Hendrix</a>. Not long after <a href="spotify:artist:776Uo845nYHJpNaStv1Ds4">Jimi</a> joined the Squires, Knight whisked him into the studio to record "How Would You Feel" -- a shameless rip of <a href="spotify:artist:74ASZWbe4lXaubB36ztrGX">Bob Dylan</a>'s "Like a Rolling Stone" -- and soon started writing with <a href="spotify:artist:776Uo845nYHJpNaStv1Ds4">Hendrix</a>. More consequentially, Knight helped encouraged <a href="spotify:artist:776Uo845nYHJpNaStv1Ds4">Hendrix</a> to sign a deal with record man Ed Chalpin. <a href="spotify:artist:776Uo845nYHJpNaStv1Ds4">Jimi</a> later claimed he thought he was signing on to a role as a sideman, but the contract bound him to Chalpin's PPX Records. This became a big deal once Chas Chandler signed <a href="spotify:artist:776Uo845nYHJpNaStv1Ds4">Hendrix</a> to a contract in 1969. Chalpin claimed he owned <a href="spotify:artist:776Uo845nYHJpNaStv1Ds4">Jimi</a>, so Chandler owed him money. This legal dispute became protracted, complicated by the fact that <a href="spotify:artist:776Uo845nYHJpNaStv1Ds4">Hendrix</a> inexplicably kept returning to the studio to cut sessions with Knight while he was in the thick of proceedings.

These early singles and latter-day jams with <a href="spotify:artist:776Uo845nYHJpNaStv1Ds4">Hendrix</a> form the bulk of Curtis Knight's catalog. A bunch were issued under <a href="spotify:artist:776Uo845nYHJpNaStv1Ds4">Hendrix</a>'s name on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Capitol+Records%22">Capitol Records</a> via a licensing agreement with PPX, but over the years they'd show up often, appearing under any number of variations on the names of Knight, the Squires, and <a href="spotify:artist:776Uo845nYHJpNaStv1Ds4">Hendrix</a>. The lawsuits weren't settled prior to <a href="spotify:artist:776Uo845nYHJpNaStv1Ds4">Hendrix</a>'s death, so they kept coming over the next few decades, but it was this association with <a href="spotify:artist:776Uo845nYHJpNaStv1Ds4">Hendrix</a> that provided Knight with a career. He moved to London, forming a band called Curtis Knight, Zeus -- <a href="spotify:artist:6Z7BJe1GnR9uXJWdWp0RSB">"Fast" Eddie Clarke</a>, who'd later join <a href="spotify:artist:1DFr97A9HnbV3SKTJFu62M">Motörhead</a>, was among its ranks for a while -- and he published a book named Jimi: An Intimate Biography in 1974. This was the splashiest attempt to ride <a href="spotify:artist:776Uo845nYHJpNaStv1Ds4">Hendrix</a>'s coattails Knight would ever attempt, but he kept grinding out a living in the U.K. and Europe, playing gigs and cutting the occasional record. He wound up settling in the Netherlands, which is where he died from cancer in November 1999. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi