Return To 60’s Main Menu Recording Artists Of The 60s 

 

JOE HINTON

“FUNNY (HOW TIME SLIPS AWAY)”

(Willie Nelson)

Back Beat 541

No. 13    October 10, 1964

;

;

;

Not much is known about Joe Hinton.   He was born some time in 1929 and he died on August 13, 1968, in a

Boston hospital of “natural causes.”    In between those two poles in life’s continuum, Joe sang his guts out.

.

It was while singing with the Spirit of Memphis gospel group that Joe was discovered by Don Robey of the

Duke and Peacock record labels.     Robey persuaded Joe to sing of other things than Jesus.   His first half-

dozen singles elicited little response from pop audiences, but Robey had faith that something very real and

urgent lived inside of Joe.     More disks were waxed and shipped; “You Know It Ain’t Right” (#88) and

“Better To Give Than Receive” (#89) grazed Billboard’s Hot 100 in 1963.

Next out of the gate was “Funny (How Time Slips Away),” a Willie Nelson country/soul song that JIMMY

ELLEDGE had charted with two years earlier (#22, 1962).   “Funny” should have made Joe more accessible

to the mainstream pop/rock radio listeners, but it didn’t.