CURTIS KNIGHT (& THE SQUIRES)
Personnel
The Squires had several line-ups during the period that Hendrix was a member, or rather probably didn`t originally have a defined line-up until early 1966 when the band signed a recording contract and made recordings.
The band name "Curtis Knight & the Squires" was a pun on Curtis` artist name "Knight". In the middle ages a squire was a Knight's servant / shield bearer / apprentice. So the band originally functioned purely as a backing band for Curtis but seem to have increasingly developed into a vechicle for Jimi Hendrix as the second single released by the band had instrumental tracks on both sides, both composed and mainly featuring Jimi with Curtis basically only appearing on the single label.
The band also gigged as "the Lovelights" and "the Lovers".
THE PLAYERS
Musicians appearing on the demo, live & studio recordings done between 1965 - 1967 include:
Curtis McNear (aka Curtis Knight aka Curtis McNair) - vocals, guitar & tambourine
Harry Jensen - guitar & bass
Lonnie Thomas (aka Lonnie Youngblood) - sax & vocals
Ray Lucas - drums
"Shears"
- guitar (participated in the 1967 sessions, unknown if the name is 100% correct)
Marion Booker - drums (often spelled Marlon, which is incorrect)
Ditto Edwards - drums
George Bragg - drums
Nathaniel Edmonds Sr. (aka Nate Edmonds) - keyboards
Ed "Bugs" Gregory - bass
Ace Hall - bass & tambourine
Napoleon Anderson (aka Hank Anderson) - bass
Both names bring up the same tracks at www.bmi.com, so Hank and Napoleon are one and the same person.
This was also confirmed by an email that I received from a friend of Mr. Anderson.
John Michael Arnold (aka Johnny Starr) - backing vocals. See the Johnny Starr -section for more information.
Edward Chalpin (aka Ed Chalpin aka Ed Dantes) - producer
Jerry Simon - producer
Ed Dantes (aka Edward "Ed" Chalpin)
- publishing money
Ed Dantes doesn't exist in real life, it's a pseudonym for Ed Chalpin. Doing a search in the BMI song licencing database at www.bmi.com nicely illustrates this fact. The database has linked given names and pseudonyms together, a composer search for "Ed Chalpin" brings up tracks credited to "Ed Dantes" and vice versa. Or search for the Jayne Mansfield track "Suey", the 45 labels credits this to Chalpin, the database credits "Ed Dantes" but a search for Edward Chalpin as composer will include it in the results...the "Ed Dantes" credit is mainly used for the 1967 studio jams, this was apparently a neat way for Chalpin to line up his pockets with the publishing money for these tracks that nobody really "composed".
Here's a fun theory: The main character of the book "the Count of Monte Cristo" is called Edmond Dantes. A synopsis of the book: "Here is the classic tale of 19-year-old Edmond Dantes who on his wedding day is framed for a crime he did not commit. While locked away Edmond learns from another prisoner of a secret treasure on the island of Monte Cristo. Edmond concocts a daring plan to escape and find the treasure. Years later, disguised as a wealthy Count, Edmond returns to his native land to find his enemies and make them pay."