10 Best Cover Songs In Classic Rock
1. All Along The Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix
When you think of rock cover songs, "All Along the Watchtower" by Jimi Hendrix feels like it belongs in its own separate league. The song has become so synonymous with Hendrix's guitar tone that many people could care less whether Hendrix himself wrote it or not.
From the time he made it on the London club scene, Hendrix was always appreciative of all types of rock music. Just a few days after the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper's, he had learned the tune and opened his show with it the next week. But there was something much different about this Bob Dylan song that caught Jimi's ear. Dylan's original has a lonely sound to it as he intones the story of the joker and the thief trying to escape their uncertain futures.
Once Hendrix heard it, he became fixated on its groove and eventually turned it into a core component of his double album Electric Ladyland. Both in the the studio and live, the guitar truly becomes one with Hendrix himself, as he plays some of the most visceral solo runs ever committed to tape while still making it seem so natural to the common man. Even Dylan himself prefers Hendrix's version to his own, and with many years of hindsight, most rock fans tend to agree.