Episode 04
Dylanisms | Podcast Mixes Showcasing Bob Dylan Cover Versions | ‘Dylanisms’ is my 10-song mix podcast project, building an extensive archive of (mostly) 1960s recordings of Bob Dylan songs as recorded by various solo performers and groups many years ago.
I will zoom in on the well known and the very obscure outfits who covered Dylan’s numbers, in particular those unknown teenage garage bands from USA. There are many but this list on Wikipedia doesn’t even acknowledge them.
My ‘Dylanisms’ project will be regular and will uncover everything worth hearing. It will last for a one-year paid subscription with my hosting platform RSS.com. By then, my mission will have been accomplished and the Gods shall anoint my feet with patchouli oil . . .
Tracks in order of appearance
01 The Jimi Hendrix Experience – “All Along The Watchtower”
During a verbal exchange between Noel and fans, Jimi lost his temper in a Swedish hotel on Jan. 4, 1968. While smashing furniture he gashed his fretting hand and required stitches. When the tour ended, Jimi and Chas remained in Sweden to appear in court and pay fines. They returned to London on Jan. 17.
Two days later Jimi, Kathy Etchingham and Brian Jones joined The Beatles in their Apple Office party for a group called Grapefruit. There Jimi was invited to participate the next day in a session being produced by Paul McCartney for his brother Mike McGear.
It was either during the McGear session, or at a party which fol-lowed with Dave Mason and Viv Prince, that Jimi heard Dylan‘s new ‘John Wesley Harding‘ album for the first time.
As ‘All Along The Watchtower’ played, Jimi declared, “We gotta record that! I gotta do that!”
Dylanisms | Podcast Mixes Celebrating Bob Dylan Cover Versions
“Bob Dylan was his greatest inspiration,” explains Kathy, “he held him in awe, and I persuaded him to do Watchtower. I talked him into it. He wanted to do ‘I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine’, which is on the same album, but he felt that it was just too personal, that it was Dylan’s own song and that he couldn’t encroach on it.”
“Anyone who doesn’t appreciate Dylan should read the words of his songs,” advised Jimi, “they’re poetry, full of the joys and tragedies of life. I’m like Bob Dylan. Neither of us sings in the accepted sense. We just be ourselves.
Sometimes I do a Dylan song and it seems to fit me so right that I figure maybe I wrote it. Almost felt like Watchtower was something I’d written but could never get together. I often feel like that about Dylan. I could never write the kinds of words he does, but he’s helped me out in trying to write ’cause I’ve got a thousand songs that will never be finished; I just lay around and write about two or three words, but now I have a little more confidence in trying to finish one.”
On Sunday, Jan. 21 Kathy, Brian Jones, and Linda Keith accompanied The Experience to Olympic for their mission. Chas produced the session.
“I didn’t play bass,” confirms Noel, “I left again. I told Hendrix to fuck off.”
The fracas in Sweden worsened their souring relationship, and Jimi’s gashed hand still hadn’t healed.
“While I’m playing I don’t think about it,” he said, “I forget everything, even the pain.”
“Noel had got pissed off and was across the road in the pub,” recalls Mitch, “but the track didn’t suffer.”
Dave Mason filled in for Noel and added guitar as well.
“Dave played acoustic guitar on it,” said Eddie, “which was kind of unusual. Jimi kept screaming at him, ‘Get it right’, because he couldn’t remember the changes. And it took a while to cut the track, but it was never finished in England, it was taken to the States and then we overdubbed.
Dylanisms | Podcast Mixes Celebrating Bob Dylan Cover Versions
It started as a four-track and then ended up in the States as as a twelve-track tape, after being transferred, so by the time it actually got finished it went through quite a few stages.”
At one point a clumsy piano track was even tried. When Watchtower was transferred at the Record Plant that spring Jimi overdubbed Mason’s bass tracks with his own.
“Jimi was a fine bass player,’ noted Mitch, “one of the best, very Motown-style. He was a very busy bass player . . . ‘All Along The Watchtower’ is a classic example of Hendrix’s bass-playing . . . he just had that touch.”
“We mixed from an Ampex MM1000 sixteen-track down to a two-track Scully machine running at 15 ips,” remembers Toni Bongiovi,
Dylanisms | Podcast Mixes Celebrating Bob Dylan Cover Versions
“In the transfer process, the tape got lost and we ended up doing more than 15 different mixes. Hendrix would stop the tape and start re-overdubbing stuff. Recording these new ideas meant that he would have to erase something. In the weeks prior to the mixing he would overdub the bass and guitar parts until he was satisfied. He’d say `I think I hear it a bit differently.’”
Eddie describes how during recording Jimi would “pop his head around the corner and say, ‘Was that alright? Are you sure?’ I’d say ‘yeah Jimi that’s great’.
He’d say, ‘well I’m gonna do another one,’ and we’d keep doing tracks and each one would be better than the next one and he would never think that what he did was good enough and you’re sitting there with six or seven masterful guitar tracks, five or six great vocal tracks. I mean it’s very hard to pick for that guy. He was very stimulating to work with.”
“Watchtower,” mused Bob Dylan, “it probably came to me during a thunder and lightning storm. I’m sure it did. I liked Jimi Hendrix’s record of this and ever since he died I’ve been doing it the same way. The meaning of the song didn’t change like when some artists do other artist’s songs. Strange though how when I sing it I always feel like it’s a tribute to him in some kind of way.”
“In All Along The Watchtower Dylan said it so groovy,” reciprocated Jimi, “I like to get into really good lyrics. After recording Watchtower and listening to it then you hear, only through somebody else’s words, what you wanted to say. It’s our own arrangement though; we just used this solo guitar as different types of sounds. Like we used it as slide and then a wah-wah and then it’d be out straight.”
Jimi set the Strat across his lap and ran the back of his lighter across the strings to get the slide effect.
“So he did Watchtower,” continues Kathy, “and he didn’t do anything with it for ages while he was thinking about it. He didn’t dare release it, because it was a ‘Bob Dylan’ song. But I played it to everybody and it used to drive him mad.
Dylanisms | Podcast Mixes Celebrating Bob Dylan Cover Versions
George Harrison told me to turn it off, because it was great, it’s one of the best things Jimi ever did as far as being himself was concerned. He came right out of himself when he did Watchtower and he enjoyed it.”
Jimi was in Denver writing his ‘Letter To The Room Full Of Mirrors’ on Sept. 2 when All Along The Watchtower was released b/w Burning Of The Midnight Lamp. The single entered American charts on Sept. 21 at #66. It spent 9 weeks on the charts, reaching only #20. Watchtower scored the highest chart position of any Hendrix single in America.
A month later on Oct. 18 it came out in England b/w Long Hot Summer Night. British fans pushed it up to #5 when one critic described Watchtower as “orgasmic, spluttering, aching, as if the entire fabric of the world is being torn apart.”
“It’s a good feeling to know that someone is digging you everywhere you go,” Jimi said, “so many people have dug the one thing you’ve just laid down and it’s being played everywhere. But I never know what’s going to be released. My record company just takes something off an album and issues it. We’ve never really based ourselves on singles. ‘Watchtower’ was the first single I had as a hit in America and yet we were pulling huge audiences before it.”
02 Rotary Connection – “Like A Rolling Stone”
taken from the LP ‘Rotary Connection’ (Cadet Concept) 1967
Dylans ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ is a production triumph that counterpoint strings and guitar from opposite speakers, while the Rotary Connection sings the song in chorus.
03 Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity – “This Wheel’s On Fire”
taken from the single on Marmalade, April 1968
04 Sun Dragon – “Love Minus Zero”
taken from the LP ‘Green Tambourine’ (MGM) 1968
Undaunted by lack of commercial action, MGM proceeded with plans to record a Sun Dragon LP. With Derek Lawrence once again in the producer’s chair, a low-budget album was quickly put together.
It’s built around the two Lemon Pipers covers with the ten remaining tracks something of a mixed bag. There’s at least a half-dozen cuts on the LP that are generally excellent, including Dylan’s ‘Love Minus Zero.’
*** Sun Dragon were backed by members of Deep Purple, Ritchie Blackmore (lead guitar), Ian Paice (drums) and Jon Lord (keyboards) on their LP ‘Green Tambourine’ which included a version of Dylan’s “Love Minus Zero”.
05 The Byrds – “Mr Tambourine Man”
taken from the CD ‘Never Before’ Murray Hill 1989
A logical choice to begin any Byrds retrospective, this first (“Byrds”) single opens with a guitar figure that has become a classic, and follows with the distinctive harmonics that helped define the Byrds sound throughout the Sixties.
Recorded with Roger McGuinn and L.A. studio musicians prior to the rest of the first LP sessions. It has never been released (or mixed) in true stereo until now. The separation here is not as wide as it might have been mixed 20 years ago, but the sound is remarkably clear and spacious nonetheless.
06 Judy Collins – “Tom Thumb’s Blues”
taken from the LP ‘In My Life’ (Elektra) 1966
07 Nico – “I’ll Keep It With Mine”
taken from the LP ‘Chelsea Girl’ (Verve) 1967
08 The Turtles – “Like A Rolling Stone”
taken from the LP ‘It Ain’t Me Babe’ (White Whale) 1965
09 The Hollies – “When The Ship Comes In”
taken from the LP ‘Hollies sing Dylan’ (Parlophone) 1969
10 Fairport Convention – “Jack O’ Diamonds”
The song “Jack O’ Diamonds” has a tenuous link with Bob Dylan but I’m claiming it to be worthy of my “Dylanisms’ project. The lyrics were taken from a poem by Dylan on the back of his LP ‘Another Side Of Bob Dylan’.
Music was added to this poem by Ben Carruthers & the Deep and released as a single in 1965. Years later, Fairport Convention recorded a version, appearing on their 1968 debut album on Polydor.
Leave a Reply