RECORDINGS WITH JIMI HENDRIX
Only the two songs released on the Don Covay & the Goodtimers 45 "Mercy, Mercy / Can`t Stay Away" (Rosemart Records 45-801), recorded at sessions on the 13th & 18th of May 1964, seem to feature Hendrix on guitar.

The rest of the tracks that appeared on the Mercy! LP and on the second Rosemart single "Take This Hurt Off Me / Please Don`t Let Me Know" were recorded in New York City between 1 - 5 October 1964 during which time Jimi was out of town as he was on tour with the Bonnevilles (see THE BONNEVILLES).

So on this page I'm only going to talk about the tracks that do involve Hendrix. For a listing of all of the tracks on the Mercy! LP see MERCY!- SESSIONS

THE STUDIO
"Official" sources state that all of the Don Covay studio recordings from the Mercy! -period in 1964 were done at A-1 Sound Studios Inc. I however believe that "Mercy, Mercy" and "Can't Stay Away" were recorded at Talentmasters Recording Studio instead - see the ad below. Why I believe so requires a long explanation which I have made a separate page for, see THE STUDIO.


CASH BOX 30 JANUARY 1965

THE RECORDING DATES
As far as I know the recording dates for all of these 1964 Don Covay recordings were first published in the book Atlantic Records A Discography by Michel Ruppli so they must have been based on information that was at the time available from the Atlantic archives. Unfortunately the book does not list exact sources used for every entry and Steve Hoffman who remastered the Covay recordings for a CD release said that "The tapes I used were Atlantic masters, plain brown boxes with only a matrix number on the side." So it seems whatever information Ruppli had at his disposal doesn't seem to be available at the moment and the source for it remains a bit of a mystery.

The summarize, I have no reason to doubt the available recording dates - nothing suggests that they would be incorrect. But since I don't know where the dates came from and after discovering that "Mercy, Mercy" probably wasn't recorded at A-1 Sound Studios I think it would be wise to keep on open mind when it comes to the recording dates until more information hopefully pops up.


(SOME OF) THE PERSONELLE
The most direct, if not the most reliable, source for information on who played what during these sessions seems to be the Atlantic Records discography so let's start by listing the information it gives for these two dates:

13 May 1964
unknown, piano, guitar, bass; Bernard Purdie, drums; Don Covay, vocal

18 May 1964
Don Covay, vocal; and others.

Which as you can see is practically nothing. Here's a list of the players (in addition to Hendrix and Don Covay) that I know have been mentioned in connection with the two sessions in May 1964:


Bernard "Pretty" Purdie
It seems to be universally accepted that Bernard Purdie plays drums on "Mercy, Mercy" so he may or may not play on "Can't Stay Away" as well. I don't think any other drummers have been suggested for these sessions in May?


King George
George "King" Clemons also took part in the Covay album sessions but exactly how much he contributed is not clear. He said on his website ³ that he worked on the Mercy! LP together with Jimi and an article & interview published in Univibes states that "George sang background vocals on the Don Covay single "Have Mercy"". So I'm listing him here on background vocals, I'm assuming Don Covay did the falsetto background vocals and King George is singing the other parts.

In the interview for Univibes he said:

"First time I saw him was in 1964, but we started to speak to each other in 1965. I saw him in Virginia, backing up. I don't remember, either it was the Isley Brothers or some (other) black band. And when I went to New York, Jimi was one of the first people I started to talk with."

This slightly contradicts his statement about working together with Jimi on the Covay sessions in 1964 but most likely 40 years later King George simply remembered the year to have been 1965 when it in fact was 1964. The sequence of events that he describes is quite possible, in my estimate Jimi joined the Isley Brothers in late January / early February 1964, well enough time for King George to get to meet him in New York City before the May 1964 Don Covay sessions.


Ronald Miller
Jerry Osborne wrote on his website in 2007 about asking Don Covay and Ace Hall about the recording of "Mercy, Mercy":

Don explains it this way:
“The lead guitar player is definitely Ronnie Miller. As for Jimi Hendrix, he was with us on that session, but only as a fill-in guitarist.”
Then Wendy put me in touch with Ace Hall, who confirmed what Don said, and added a clarification and a bit more to the story:
“What Don means by a “fill-in” player is really a secondary guitarist, one who fills in a bit here and there — such as perhaps between verses when the lead is playing something else.
“Around the same time as “Mercy, Mercy,” Jimi and I wrote a song together that Little Richard recorded titled “I Don't Know What You Got (But It's Got Me)” [Vee-Jay 698]. On that track, Jimi does play lead guitar.
“Jimi was also an on-again, off-again member of the Goodtimers. He would occasionally tour with us in '65, meaning many people got to see him years before anyone knew his name.
“Besides myself and Ronnie Miller, the other full-time Goodtimers were George Braggs and Harry Jensen.”

So both Don Covay and Ace Hall confirmed to Jerry Osborne that the guitar players on "Mercy, Mercy" were Ronald Miller and Jimi Hendrix.

Bob Bushnell
The liner notes of the 2000 "Mercy / See-Saw" CD release ⁴ first state that Ronald Miller plays guitar on "Mercy, Mercy" and then contradict this by listing the following line-up for "Mercy, Mercy" and "Take This Hurt Off Me" :

Ronald Miller - bass
Bob Bushnell - guitar
Bernard Purdie - drums
Directed and produced by Horace Ott
Recorded in New York 1964

The Atlantic Records Discography ⁵ apart from Bernard Purdie on drums for the 13 May doesn't list any other personnel for the session on the 13th of May and no personnel whatsoever for the 18th of May. So the info given in the CD liner notes doesn't seem very reliable.

Bushnell seems to have been very much in demand as a session player in the 60s, appearing on a huge list of legendary artists recordings. But almost always playing bass, very rarely appearing on guitar. The Atlantic discography listings for the rest of the tracks on the Mercy! LP, cut over multiple sessions in October 1964, vary between listing Bushnell either on guitar or on bass and also list Billy Butler, Wally Richardson and Harry Jensen as guitar players.  

So Bob Bushnell may be playing on some of the tracks on the Mercy! LP But if Bushnell was there for the May 1964 sessions together with Ronald Miller who was a guitar player and the co-composer of "Mercy, Mercy" AND Jimi Hendrix it seems unlikely that Bushnell would also have played guitar. So perhaps he played bass or only participated in the October 1964 session?

Glovon
The producer of these recordings, "Glovon" as stated on the Mercy! LP, is "Vonglo" backwards. "Vonglo" in turn was the name of a publishing company very likely co-owned / run by Covay and Horace Ott, see VONGLO MUSIC PUB. CO.


THE TRACKS
Can't Stay Away
Composer: Don Covay & Horace Ott (or Ronald Miller?)
Recorded at: Talentmasters Recording Studio, 126 West 42nd Street, New York City, New York, USA
Engineer: Bob Gallo?
Producer: Glovon
Date: 13 May 1964
Drums - Bernard Purdie
Bass - Bob Bushnell? Ace Hall?
Guitar - Jimi Hendrix
Vocals - Don Covay
Organ - Horace Ott?
Piano - Horace Ott?
Harmony vocal (falsetto) - Don Covay?

Mono and stereo mixes. According to Ruppli`s Atlantic Records discography this was the only song recorded on the 13th of May 1964. As the Talentmasters ad only mentions "Mercy, Mercy" this track could have been recorded elsewhere but as both tracks were on the same Rosemart 45 it looks like two songs were recorded to be released as a single. Both are listed as having been recorded in May 1965 and the B side "Can't Stay Away" was recorded first. It would have made little sense to first record "Can't Stay Away" for the B side at A-1, then move to Talentmasters to record the A side, then go back to A-1 for the rest of the tracks. Everything is of course possible and I'm only guessing here but I think the more likely sequence of events would be that the sessions started at Talentmasters and then at some point after Atlantic signed Covay directly instead of just distributing the Rosemart singles the sessions were moved to A-!. So I believe "Can't Stay Away" was also recorded at Talentmasters.

It is hard to tell from this version of "Can't Stay Away" whether or not Jimi plays guitar on it, some people think he does, some don`t. The main arguments for Jimi being on it are that it does sound like it could be him on guitar and that the Atlantic discography lists the two sessions for the first Rosemart 45 as being only five days apart from each other.

What confuses matters further is that the discography lists an unreleased take of "Can't Stay Away" as having being recorded during the following session on 18th of May 1964 but notes that the version eventually released was this one recorded first on the 13th of May 1964. Don Covay may of course have tried to record the song again but then decided that he preferred the first version - that the unreleased second version remains unreleased and has probably been lost doesn't help when trying to figure this puzzle out.

Listening to the stereo mix it sounds like overdubs were made during the sessions. The falsetto harmony vocals seem to have been overdubs done by Covay and there's both an organ and a piano part on the track which could mean that one of them was overdubbed by Horace Ott. Since the recordings were done on three track it is quite possible, and based on how to mixes sound quite likely, that some parts of the song are overdubs.

Available on:
Mono version:
7" Don Covay & the Goodtimers: "Mercy, Mercy / Can't Stay Away" (Rosemart Records 45-801)
Stereo version:
Cd Don Covay: "Mercy / See-saw" (Koch Records KOC-CD-8186)

Mercy, Mercy
Composer: Don Covay & Ronald Miller
Recorded at: Talentmasters Recording Studio, 126 West 42nd Street, New York City, New York
Engineer: Bob Gallo
Producer: Glovon
Date: 18 May 1964
Drums - Bernard Purdie?
Bass - Bob Bushnell? Ace Hall?
lead guitar - Jimi Hendrix
1st rhythm guitar (overdub?) - Jimi Hendrix or Ronald Miller?
2nd rhythm guitar (overdub?) - Jimi Hendrix or Ronald Miller?
Vocals - Don Covay
Harmony vocal (falsetto) - Don Covay?
Harmony vocal - George "King" Clemons?

"Mercy, Mercy" seems to be edited at 2.09. Listening to the stereo mix it's clear that there are three different guitar parts and there different vocal parts. Quite a lot to record in one go so again it sounds like there were overdubs done at the session. I think that rather than there being three different guitar players present at the session there were two, Jimi Hendrix and Ronald Miller, and one of them recorded two guitar parts. If the falsetto harmony vocals were done by Don Covay those again would have to be overdubs as well.

On the page WHO WROTE MERCY, MERCY? you can read about the changes to the writing credits for "Mercy, Mercy" on different releases. Please see that page for the full story but in a nutshell, I concluded that "Mercy, Mercy" was written by Covay & Miller and it was based on or followed the same format as an earlier song by Ronnie And The Manhattans, the single "Come On Back". The "Ronnie" is Ronald Miller and if you listen to the guitar playing on "Come On Back" it doesn't sound much at all like the main guitar part on "Mercy, Mercy". Which I believe is another piece of evidence for the main guitar part (mixed central in the stereo version) to be played by Jimi Hendrix.



Also, if you listen to the guitar parts on the rest of the tracks on the Mercy! LP none are quite as varied and fluid as the guitar parts on "Mercy, Mercy" and "Can't Stay Away".

Available on:
Mono version:
7" Don Covay & the Goodtimers: "Mercy, mercy / Can't stay away" (Rosemart Records 45-801)
Stereo version:
Cd Don Covay: "Mercy / See-saw" (Koch Records KOC-CD-8186)

 
Can't Stay Away (unreleased) 
Composer: Don Covay & Horace Ott or Ronald Miller
Recorded at: Talentmasters Recording Studio, 126 West 42nd Street, New York City, New York
Engineer: Bob Gallo
Producer: Glovon
Date: 18 May 1964

This track is unreleased, uncirculated and possibly doesn't exist anymore so it's anyone's guess who was playing on it.




SOURCES
1 posting on the stevehoffman.tv message board http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=39554&highlight=don+covay:

2 email from Chris Moise 13 June 2018

3 The King George website, now offline, used to be at http://home.swipnet.se/%7Ew-24657