Summer of 2019, a new season of the latest TV show at the time came out - ‘ Lucifer’. Everyone is buzzing about what an insanely good fictitious devil Tom Ellis is. While I’m not in the habit of keeping track of the latest new hit Netflix offers, I decided to give the trailer a watch. While the trailer was pretty good, the title of the next video on autoplay grabbed my attention. ‘All along the Watchtower Lucifer version by Tom Elis’ was the title. Being a massive Jimi Hendrix fanboy my whole life it was almost impossible to not click on the video. Tom Elis performs the first verse of the song entirely on the piano and does justice to the ‘feel’ of that song. While being a tribute to the legendary song, it also keeps the essence of the song alive for a much younger audience.

'All Along the Watchtower’ is arguably one of the most popular Jimi Hendrix songs of all time. This was Hendrix' only Top 40 hit in the US. He charted a few times in the UK, where he rose to fame before making a name for himself in America.

I bet you’ll be hard-pressed to find any well-known musician who plays the guitar not cover this song. You've probably most recently heard Dave Mathew’s version while performing with John Mayer’s band ‘Dead and Company’. A friend once sent me a clip from the show 'Prison Break' which features the Spanish version of the song playing in the background. That speaks volumes of the popularity of this song.

Not only is this song one of the most recognizable songs ever. It’s easily inspired millions of people all around the world to pick up the guitar. Hardly easy enough to be the first guitar lesson, but something most beginners would strive to play sooner rather than later.

All that’s great but here’s the real kicker - It’s not HIS song.

I listened to it for years before realizing that Jimi Hendrix's version was only a cover of Bob Dylan’s. I implore you to only continue reading after you listen to that song if you haven’t already.

If you’re anything like me you’ll take a moment to marvel at how different the same song sounds. So did Bob Dylan, the original creator of the song :

"It overwhelmed me, really. He had such talent, he could find things inside a song and vigorously develop them. He found things that other people wouldn't think of finding in there. He probably improved upon it by the spaces he was using. I took license with the song from his version, actually, and continue to do it to this day."

That’s insane if you think about it. Imagine ‘sampling’ a song (as it’s known these days) and getting such praise for it from the creator of the original. It’s not known to happen.

I’ve since been obsessed with the idea of 'vigorously fleshing things out'. To reference a previously written post 'On not knowing when to shut up’, I have attempted to do the same. Regardless of whether or not you enjoyed reading it, it was based on a very isolated but seemingly insignificant event in my life. It will now forever remain in my memory as a cheeky little story I used to make a point here on ‘Wandering disposition’. The art of the story is worth developing for an audience. Even if that audience is just you.

Jimi Hendrix was an absolute genius at being able to flesh out something magical every time he played. It continues to be the sole reason he is considered the most innovative guitar player in the history of the instrument. The performance of the guitar is on a completely different level today. All you have to do is spend a few minutes looking up new-age Instagram guitarists online and you’ll be blown away by their talent. I would argue and those guitarists would probably agree with me when I say that, “ Jimi Hendrix laid the foundation for all of it. With the help of a few other guitarists, I might add “.

Let’s be honest, life is mostly a collection of things mundane. You can sit around and wait for interesting things to happen. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. However, try conjuring something out of nothing. ‘Vigorously flesh out’ something of your own the next time you feel stuck in life. We seem to have no diminished capacity to do that at will in our personal lives, a flair for the dramatic to spice up our social lives, the way we see it. We’d be much better served, however, if we did that with our creative lives.

Make no mistake, Bob Dylan’s version is a masterpiece. But in 2023 the only ones who would listen to the song would include old men in their 70s, reliving an era gone by, and/or new coming-of-age aspiring singer/songwriters looking for inspiration. Without Hendrix’s version of the song, Bob Dylan’s classic would’ve remained just that - ‘A Bob Dylan classic’.

Authors note:

For the eagle-eyed readers, the title of this piece is “The Hendrix Chord“ which is the E7#9 Chord (‘Purple haze). It was a chord (or a collection of notes) he used quite often, especially while playing live. If you attempt to play it at random it may sound odd to you. That’s because its notes mix both major and minor scales, something he liked to do in his music. Within the context of his songs, the chord sounds fantastic and any guitarist worth his salt would be able to recognize it immediately. Jimi Hendrix was famously known for knowing very little music theory and often bent music rules which he discovered after hours and hours of just playing the guitar.

That’s how creativity works. We’d be served well to follow his example.

PS: I would love to hear any version of ‘ All Along the Watchtower’. So if there’s a version of the song you think I should know about, feel free to send it to us here at ‘Wandering Disposition’.