DylanTest™ Vol. 5 – All Along the Watchtower

John Wesley Harding, 1967 – Dylan’s country-flavored eighth studio album is named after Texas outlaw John Wesley Hardin (whose name is misspelled).

Motorcycle accident – On July 29, 1966, Bob Dylan wrecked his treasured 1964 Triumph T100 on Striebel Road on the outskirts of Woodstock, NY. The accident left Bob with cracked vertebrae in his neck.

Dylan would spend the months following his near-fatal crash recovering and eventually recording what would become known as The Basement Tapes at Big Pink with the Hawks (soon to be The Band). He would also write the songs for the country-flavored John Wesley Harding, which he would record in October and November of 1967.

Jimi Hendrix Experience, 1970 – Jimi’s interpretation is recognized as a masterpiece – by critics, fans and even Dylan himself.

Extra credit: the audio above is from the International Atlanta Pop Festival in 1970.

Drink my wine – The lyrics are as follows:

Businessmen, they drink my wine
Plowman dig my earth…

The Band – The live audio above is from Dylan’s legendary performance with The Band in 1974. The recording was released commercially on the double album, Before the Flood.

It should be noted that Bob and The Band emulated Jimi’s interpretation rather than Dylan’s original acoustic version on John Wesley Harding.

It seems to end at the beginning – The final lines of the song seem to be the beginning of the tale:

Two riders were approaching
And the wind began to howl

Dylan said this in a 1968 interview with Sing Out! magazine:

[“All Along the Watchtower”]…opens up in a slightly different way, in a stranger way, for we have the cycle of events working in a rather reverse order.

The Grateful Dead – That’s Jerry Garcia cranking on that solo in the audio above. That performance – part of the Dylan & Dead summer tour – was recorded on July 26, 1987, in Anaheim, CA.

Neil Young – Yep, that’s the Grandfather of Grunge ripping it on August 29, 2000, in Cleveland. The recording was released commercially on Road Rock Vol. 1. 

Jimi Hendrix – Rolling Stone said this about Jimi’s studio version of “All Along the Watchtower”:

Using the line “And the wind began to howl” as a springboard, Hendrix constructed a tumultuous four-part solo that transformed Dylan’s concise foreboding into an electric hurricane.

As for context within the RS rankings, Jimi’s “All Along the Watchtower” was sandwiched between David Bowie’s “Heroes” at #46 and Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” at #48.

Electric Ladyland – It was Jimi’s third and final album, released on October 18, 1968. His rendition of “All Along the Watchtower” became a Top-20 single, which pushed Electric Ladyland all the way to #1 in America (and it stayed there for two weeks). Tragically, Hendrix would die just two years later.

Extra credit: Hendrix was embarrassed by the album’s “naked lady” gatefold, which featured a portrait of 19 nude women against a black background. A handful of record dealers banned the album, calling it “pornographic.”