Cover songs can be many things. They can be lazy album filler. They can be ho-hum recordings that do nothing to advance a band’s catalog. But, once in a while, they can be truly epic. For my next five entries, I’m highlighting five of my favorite cover songs of all time. Each of these tracks, in my opinion, have reinvented and, in many ways, exceeded the original recordings.
As legendary as Bob Dylan is, I understand that he’s not for everyone. Some people just can’t listen past Dylan’s nasal-infused vocal delivery. Jimi Hendrix wasn’t exactly the most vocally gifted musician either. But whatever he lacked as a singer he more than made up for as a guitar player. The thing about his rendition of the Dylan classic “All Along the Watchtower” is he lit every strand of folk and Americana roots from the song on fire, burned those elements to the ground and then made the fire rise even higher with an electric reboot.
Throughout my middle and high school years, I lived next door to a Jimi Hendrix fanatic. My brother introduced me to Jimi’s impressive catalog, which was incredibly prolific given his short life span. The thing that immediately drew me in to his music was a guitar playing style that almost sounded otherworldly. It wasn’t rock. It wasn’t blues. But it was this crazy blend of the two that seemed to be so effortless to Jimi but impossible to others. You can’t simply play the same notes that Jimi played and expect it sound the same. It was the way in which he navigated back and forth between those two genres so easily that makes “All Along the Watchtower” one of the greatest cover songs of all time.
“No reason to get excited. The thief, he kindly spoke. There are many here among us. Who feel that life is but a joke.”