Curtis Knight

Who was Curtis Knight?

Curtis Knight, born Mont Curtis McNear, was an American musician who is known for his connection to Jimi Hendrix.

Knight was an artist in the 1960s Harlem music scene, usually fronting his own band "The Squires". This band gigged in clubs in New York City, and other surrounding areas. It was through Knight that Hendrix got involved with Ed Chalpin, a record producer who signed the future superstar to a contract which Hendrix soon forgot about and left for England to form "The Jimi Hendrix Experience".

Both Knight and Chalpin would later claim that they were trying to make Hendrix a "star", which has some validity as his first label credit was on the first single he recorded with Knight as "arranger", and the second single had him as co-composer with the producer Jerry Simon. They weren't doing a very good job though as that's as far as it got, before Chas Chandler stepped in. Chalpin had him sign a contract that gave Hendrix 1% of any royalties that his recordings earned. Which was actually very favourable in comparison to the percentage the individual members of the Beatles and the Who were getting at that time, apart from the fact that neither of the two records sold much. The sum of "one dollar" in the contract was merely a formalised legality common to most artist contracts at that time, misconstrued by many who appear to think Hendrix was "bought" for a dollar. Meanwhile, Chas Chandler, who when tipped off by Rolling Stone Keith Richards girlfriend, Linda Keith, took along his then manager Mike Jeffery, and "discovered" Hendrix in Greenwich Village while he was fronting his first band 'The Blue Flame'. It was only after Chalpin read music trade papers that he realized that Hendrix had made it successfully across the Atlantic in the "Psychedelic" and "Flower Power" period, and began to pursue legal action against Hendrix, his management and record companies, with Knight as his main witness.