One Song - Jimi Hendrix's "All Along The Watchtower"

Episode Date: July 24, 2025

Is “All Along the Watchtower” the ultimate cover? In part two of their Jimi Hendrix deep dive, Diallo and LUXXURY unpack his best-selling single. They compare it to Bob Dylan’s original, explore the track’s groundbreaking studio experimentation, and explain how Hendrix’s left-handed playing helped shape his unmistakable sound. Plus, find out what happens when a very intoxicated Brian Jones wanders into the recording session. One Song Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/40SIOpVROmrxTjOtH7Q1yw?si=01e0354a65b9460b Songs Discussed: “All Along the Watchtower” - The Jimi Hendrix Experience “Stars On 45” - Stars On 45 “Spanish Castle Magic” - The Jimi Hendrix Experience “Castles Made of Sand” - The Jimi Hendrix Experience “Little Wing” - The Jimi Hendrix Experience “Like A Rolling Stone” - Bob Dylan “All Along the Watchtower” - Bob Dylan “Crazy Train” - Ozzy Osbourne “Crosstown Traffic” - The Jimi Hendrix Experience Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There must be some kind of way out of here. Said Diallo to luxury. This interpulation. Actually, a cover. From Dylan to Jimmy. And all along watchtower. Jimmy Hendrix part two. And if you like what you hear right now,

give us five stars not two. I like it. I like it. One note guitar solo. Luxury, this is the second. second part of our two-parter on Jimmy Hendricks, and today's song is a cover. Like you just said, it's a cover. And in fact, many people say today's song is the greatest cover of all time, the ultimate cover.

Is it the ultimate cover? It could be. Maybe that's overstated. In my personal opinion, I think it's an incredible cover. I think that there's lots of great covers out there. There's some great covers out there, but I think the same way that people talk about the Godfather Part 2 sort of being the ultimate class act sequel. I feel like this is the ultimate class act cover.

I think it's well put. I can't add or contribute or improve upon that. Let's just leave it right there. Show's over. But listen, it's definitely up there with the greatest covers of all time. And that after Jimmy, this became the definitive version of the song, even for Bob Dylan himself, who wrote and performed the original version. But after 1974, only played Jimmy's version live.

That's right. It's actually the only Jimmy Hendrick song to ever crack the top 40. It's his best-selling single of all time, reaching number six in the UK and number 20 in the United States. It's also an important song lyrically, contextually, historically, and musically. And luckily, we have the stems. We do. Yes. Today we're talking about one song, and that song is all along the watchtower by the

Jimmy Hendricks experience. There must be some kind of way out of here. Say the Joker to the thief. I'm actor-director and sometimes DJ Dialla Riddle. And I'm producer, DJ, songwriter, and musicologist luxury, aka the guy who whispers Interpolation. And this is one. song. The show where we break down the stems and stories behind iconic songs across genres,

tell you why they deserve one more listen. That's right. You will hear these songs like you've never heard them before. And if you want to watch one song, I know, crazy idea. You can watch this full episode on YouTube and Spotify. And while you're there, please like and subscribe. All right, this is the second part of our Jimmy Hendrix two-parter. If you didn't already listen to our episode about Purple Hays, which came out last week, go check that one out right now. So, when did you first hear the song all along the watchtower? And whose version was it? It was definitely Jimmy's. Okay.

And I kind of love the fact that for the longest time, my only real exposure to this song was a record compilation, you know, like one of those, like Freedom Rock. Hey, man, is that Freedom Rock? Hey, turn it up, man. Can you make that joke last week? It's a good joke. Let's use it every episode from now on. No, but what's funny is that, you know, because I only knew this song from that commercial,

the only lyrics to this song that I do was, oh, Lullo, watchtower. And it was like, I've been through the desert on a horse with no name. That's always like... Sunshine, go away. That commercial was just a mega mix to me. This was the only section of all along the Watchtower that I knew. I knew that I liked it, but I only knew that section. I never thought of it.

That commercial is kind of like Paul's boutique where I go through the world and then I'll hear the sample sources from the Beastie Boy's sampled record. But it's just the fragments of all those like hippie songs. Dude, I thought the Beatles sang every song on Stars on 45. So I thought they did that. Sugar, do, do, do, do, do. Like every song on Stars on 45. If you guys are old enough to remember Stars on 45, it was this mega mix.

It's so good. And it has a lot of Beatles songs on it. And then it goes right to the next one. And that might have been one of my very first exposure to the Beatles. I was like, man, these guys got hits. What about you, man? What was the first time you heard all on the Watchtower? I probably heard this song for the first time on a Jimmy Hendrix best of.

I'm sorry. Sometimes it happens that way. Why? Never apologize. This is the same place. We are always vulnerable. No, come on. Listen, I was a huge Jimmy fan.

like we're going to talk about Axis Bold of Love, one of my favorite all-time records, his second record, the one that came before this one, this is from Electric Ladyland. But I only heard this song when I was in Paris on my junior year abroad, went to the Virgin Megastore and they had listening stations and there was this Jimmy Hendrix and I'm like, you know what? I should know a little more Jimmy Hendrix. I bought it and it did turn me on to a whole bunch of tunes I didn't know, like this one. I love that. So let's pick up where our last episode ended. After Purple Hays, Jimmy and the Experience released a follow-up album, Axis Bold Is Love. great cover to this one. Many, especially at the time, actually felt that this album was not as classic as the previous, Are You Experienced? They were all wrong. They were all wrong. I feel your opinion coming on. But there were people who felt like it was a bit of a sophomore slump. Not everybody here in the studio, obviously. I know that Jimmy himself at the time said he felt rushed. I feel what's crazy about that record and looking back at the dates of all three of the major studio records is they're all done. Seven months after Are You Experience came out, Access, Bold of love.

Both of them are 1967, and they're already working on this third record, Electric Ladyland. Jimmy Hendricks's output is kind of all within like a 12 to 18 month period. It's incredible how much incredible music came out of that short period. I actually think there's something to be said about like when you're hot, just release a lot of music while you're hot. You know what I mean? Like, don't go off and, I mean, something. Yeah, Rihanna. Looking at you.

Well, no, I was thinking about like, you know, Kendrick Lamar. He doesn't release an album every year. But when he does release an album, it's usually a pretty big deal. but like I kind of like the artists who like are coming out with an album every year so long as it doesn't start to feel hacky, you know. Chubby Checker, let's twist again. I don't know. Maybe you should wait. He did wait a, listen, I'm just realizing as we're talking about this that there's a, I won't say skeleton in my closet, but one of the influences on me with this band. One other band who was playing covers of Jimmy Hendricks that got me into Jimmy Hendricks is the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Full credit, where to. Wow. I was a fan of the Chili Peppers. The much malign chili peppers. In the late 80s, early 90s, big fan. Genuine fan. I was super into them. Oh, dude, did you like Mother's Milk?

Mother's Milk? Mother's Milk? Upliff Mofo Party Plan is insanely good. I truly loved blood sugar sex magic. And I'm not ashamed to say it. It came out at the right time in my life. A fine record. And when that record came out, they had been touring on it. They did covers.

I heard live versions of at least three Jimmy's songs from Axis. I think I heard Spanish Castle Magic. They did a version. Castles made of sand. And I think Little Wing, anyway, those three songs are three incredible Jimmy Hendricks songs. And by the way, I think I was a big fan of Lenny Kravitz, who was obviously, when he wasn't covering Foxy Lady, he was definitely doing a Jimmy Hendrix form of music. Oh, my God. And his genre was Jimmy Hendrix.

His sideman whose name escapes me looks just like Noel Redding with the whole fro hair. My two favorite songs on this record are like this far apart on the people on the no ability scale. Little Wing, one of the most gorgeous songs of all time. It's got the chord changes when you're like a young guitar player. It's one of those songs that you learn quickly. But of course, cannot execute in the same way as the master Jimmy Hendricks did. I don't even think I'm going to be honest. I don't think I know Lil Wing.

Why don't we play a little bit of Little Wing? So good. It gives me chills, like just listening to it. Sophomore Slump. Ridiculous. Let's face it. Ridicrous lyrics. I'm playing.

I'm playing. Like Lucy in the sky with diamonds sort of style, you know, It's so good. But it's so good. That's the first time I'm ever hearing this. Really? And it's really good. Yeah, it makes me think that,

and I was already feeling this way, I'm just, I'm on this kick now where I'm going back and relistening and rediscovering, Hendrix, because there's not a ton of music. There isn't, there is, there's four albums, but there's like this rich, like they keep on every year re-releasing stuff from the vault and the archives and live versions. So there's, I think there's whatever, 50, 70.

No, no, I know. But I think what you're saying is that when I go to Discover an artist, like some artists, you know, will have like 20 albums. Like, that's not the case with Jimmy. It's more like lots of versions of the song you're like. So this album went number one, Electric Ladyland, in the U.S., and it was recorded and mixed between Olympic Studios in London and the record plant in New York at the top of 1968.

And yeah, this album's recorded over quite a bit of time. I mean, like, you know, they start recording in 1967, they kind of come back to a 1968, they're going back and forth across the pond. And here's something that I think is just nuts. while recording this album, it's a party in the studio, which was increasingly a problem for bass player Noel Redding and producer Chas Chandler. But Jimmy is having the time of his life,

linking up with A-list rock and rollers, including one of my favorites. Here's Jimmy Hendricks and Jim Morrison of the Doors. That's right, two gyms on stage. March, 1968 at a club called The Scene in New York. Here's a snippet. I mean, this could be Inking the Stooges in Detroit, With the MC5, like, sounds like a proto-punk super group.

I do actually feel that way. I do feel like the punks had some love of Jim Morrison. Obviously, the new romantics loved Jim Morrison. And I just never knew that Jim Morrison had ever taken the stage with Jimmy Hendricks. This is one thing that I think the internet gets right, which is that there's very little chance that even if you were live in March of 1968 that you would know to go to the scene and see these two icons on stage together. But thankfully, due to the wonders of the internet.

You don't have to. We actually have this archived. And AI could never anticipate that the blend of two, those two would sound like that. Not in a million years. Well, I think there were probably some, I think there were probably some drugs involved in both of their performances. Oh, my God.

Well, 27 Club. We will be talking about 27 Club, unfortunately, today. Both members of said club, incredibly. That's not a club you want to be... No, please don't join that club. Visiting or going into the VIP booth in. And by the way, Morrison is not our last guest this episode to be a part of that unfortunate club.

We'll be talking in a moment. That's right. Another guest on this record. Exactly. And it is interesting because the hippie movement was flourishing in our last episode. You know, like we got to talk about like the Summer of Love and all that. And here by night, just as by 1968, it's all going quite dark. Things are getting a little dark. That's true. And by the time Jimmy is recording a record plan doing 50 takes, you know, getting his producer to quit, MLK has been assassinated. The 10 Offensive is about to blow the Vietnam War wide open.

You know, things are just going nuts. Yeah. 68 is a very different year than 67. Absolutely. So getting back to recording Electric Ladyland, Jimmy had loved Bob Dylan for some time. It seems like he basically really strongly identified with Bob. And he said, sometimes I play Dylan's songs,

and they are so much like me that it seems to me that I wrote them. I love that. Yeah, that's such a great quote. And when you think about it, so like it's right there in the vocals, like Jimmy with his own vocal style, he's not known for being a singer. Yeah. In the same way that Dylan's not known for being a singer.

That's right. I never really thought of that. They both have very distinct singing styles. I feel like Jimmy identified with Bob. Part of it was because he was able to see another singer succeeding with incredible songwriting, but not necessarily having the best voice. This is an era where there's so many incredible voices.

I know. You're not going to... Aretha Franklin is thriving. And there isn't hung rock yet with that lesson, which is really interesting to think about chronologically. We sort of take for granted now, there's a lot of lanes you can go as vocals. But back then, you know, to be a vocalist,

to be on stage singing and not be Malia Jackson or something, Aritha Franklin, right? It must have been something for him. Well, as we said in our previous episode, Jimmy was actually really self-conscious about his way. He had to record his vocals with a screen up so that people wouldn't see him. Yeah, Jimmy had already covered a Dylan song. He did Like a Rolling Stone live at Monterey in 67. He loved his latest record, the LP, John Wesley Harding, which had come out.

He'd apparently go around to parties and sort of like hold it up to people. And he wanted to sort of be associated with it. I heard that story. He kept it under his arm, they said. He had a deep connection to this music and to this artist. And he knew he wanted to cover a song. And at a certain point, he chose all along the watchtower. That was the one.

And look, I'm just going to come clean here. I have personally avoided the music of Bob Dylan. As my own personal boycott against the music writ large of the baby boomers, I felt like it was forced on me. Bob Dylan is like, you know, the person they put the most, I feel like, on the songwriting pedestal. Wait, do you hear that? Yeah. That's the sound of the boomers in the comments.

I can hear them. That's the sound of a million keyboards firing up to come forward. But listen, I'm just being honest. obviously anybody who writes for living as I do has immense respect actually for Bob Dylan. I think that there's just, there's always been something musically about his particular style of folk music. It's just, it's never moved me. Listen, I'm going to support you on this. I've never been the big Stiland fan.

But what I like to say, and this is very true. And on the show, hopefully, if you listen to the show many times, if you've listened to every episode of what you ought to, we are the opposite of gatekeepers. We believe that every potential song or artist, there's a gate that just has to, open. I just haven't found my way into Dylan yet. Actually, maybe studying for this episode. Do we kind of have this in common a little bit? It's just a matter of not being exposed to it in such way that I've like related to it and connected to it. I did not know that we have this in common. In part for me, it's because I connect so much sonically to the musical part of the music itself.

Yes. Like chord changes that are unusual and surprising melodies. The drums, the driving rhythm. Dylan is about storytelling. Almost 100%. You're not going to hear innovative chords or melodies. you are going to be riveted by the storytelling. And in some ways, I think people really are attracted to the voice. I'm talking about it at a giant catalog. So there's a lot of reasons to love Dylan. I personally haven't found my way into it. I think because it's not sonically as interesting as what I tend to like.

I love the way you put that. You have not found your way into Dylan. I'm sure that at some point, somebody in these comments is going to be like, guys, here's your gateway drug for Dylan. Try, listen to that. In the meantime, we're going to listen to a small clip of all along the Watchtower. Actually, D'all, that's kind of a great challenge. for us right now. Why don't we listen to

Bob Dylan's original version of all along the Watchtower and pretend that we're Jimmy Hendrix in 1967 and see if we can hear what he was hearing maybe. He starts laughing right away. He starts laughing right away. It sounds like a not irritating Bob Dylan. Laughing right away.

It is a little hard to get over the hump of the voice. The voice is a hump. The voice is a bit of an impediment. That is a Bob Dylan. That is somebody. That's a Bob Dylan impression. That's a Bob Dylan impression. Is that really the original version?

He really overdid it too. He dialed up the Bob Dylan. We're doing our best to be open-minded. We are definitely open-minded. We are two of the most open-minded men. Go on to send me the evil comments. I'm fine with it. That was an honest reaction.

Play it back. Play it back. Okay, what's Jimmy hearing? The thief he kindly spoke. I think Jimmy's hearing a great song. And an okay voice. And a voice that he can emulate. When you do a cover, part of what you're trying to do, right,

is put your stamp on something that's already known. Sure. You're inherently in some way, you have to like kind of artistically put this aside, but there is some implicit competition. You have to do something that is different or better than, or different enough than that people won't unfavorably compare your version to the original. Perhaps he's genuinely a fan of Dylan as a songwriter, But he also hears in Dylan something that he can maybe best.

Well, listen, I think he hears great lyrics. Great storytelling. I will say, you know, even though I was laughing because it sounded almost like a Dylan impersonator in a second, you can't get past these lyrics. Like he's talking in such bold, big terms. Right. And big riddles. He's got these characters. A lot of ambiguity.

It's storytelling with ambiguity both together. So no two people are going to interpret it the same. There's a beautiful poetry in that. But you know what you also made me think of is that. you know, often if you go into a studio to record something, a lot of times there's been somebody who will record a version for, you know, the singer to hear, you know, like a demo version. Yeah, like a demo, like this is what it's supposed to sound like.

And I've been in those sessions where the person who's saying the demo is really kind of like doing a good job. And then you bring in the actual singer, the star, whatever that is. And sometimes they will immediately try and you can see them thinking, how am I going to make this mine? Like how am I going to change this in my interpretation so that nobody will ever say, we should have just put out the demo. That's right. That is always the goal with a cover.

It's like you've got to get someone to choose yours over the one they already know. So Jimmy's version comes out, what, like six months? Like six months after Bob's. That's incredible to me. That's like Tyler the Creator releasing his version of squabble up. It's crazy by right now. That they would have done that. So many covers came out while something was fresh in the air because the origin of the term cover version

is you're covering a part of the market not covered by the original. Right. I did not know that. Yeah, the legacy of cover versions is if... That's why we call it a cover. Yeah, because if this audience is hearing it, this audience isn't. So this, this goes, harkens back to the racist origins of cover versions. But to oversimplify it, if there was for the black audience, that's right.

The rock and roll record gets it to the white people is essentially where it comes from, right? So you're covering the public. Covering the market. I did not know, I did not know that I did not know the etymology of covers. But you instinctively understood what was happening. The second is the same exact. That's so cool. So when we get back from our break, we're going to hear Jimmy Hendricks's version of All Along the Watchtower.

We will give you the voice of Jimmy Hendricks, the guitar mastery of Jimmy Hendricks, and the parts of this song you may have never noticed or heard before. When we come back, stick around. All right, welcome back to one song, luxury. Let's get into some stems. Shall we start with the drums? Let's do it. Well, we got Mitch Mitchell and a secret surprise guest who's on this track.

Let's start with the isolated, incredible fill that begins the song. And I'll tell you what's going on. Oh, we love that Mitch Mitchell so much. It's really, really good. We love the Mitch Mitchell. We gave him some flowers on our Purple Hays episode. Jazz chain drummer, British gentlemen. And actually, the only member of the experience, aside from Jimmy, on this song,

we'll be getting into that in just a moment. Wow, I didn't know that. Okay. But there is a sound that we all responded to. Yes, I used to call this the rattlesnake. What is that rattlesnake? Well, you're consistent, if nothing else, because we've heard the sound on this show before. And I think you said Rattlesnake before.

This is the same instrument. It's called a Vibrislap that we also heard at the beginning of nothing but a G-thing. Wow. The Dr. Dre-Snoop episode. And for those astute ear having listeners, we will one day do a third song that it's on. We will one day be doing Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne, which also begins with the sound. But getting back to the story of this song being made. I love the story of who's on this track who made that sound happen.

So are you familiar with Brian Jop? Jones. Of course. Of course you are. Now, he's, I would say, I would go so far as to say for the story of this song, he may even be the unsung hero. Wow. Yeah, because that is a very important part of the song. Insofar as what he added, that sounds, and what he didn't add, which we'll be getting to in just a minute. Okay. But for those who don't know, Brian Jones, was the founding member of a very famous rock band. And in the telling of Keith Richards, in 1962, when they were just getting started, this gentleman, Brian, was on the phone with a booker. They needed a band name to book their first ever gig. So he looks on the floor and he's a copy of the best of muddy waters.

Side one track five is the Rolling Stone Blues, and that's how the band became the Rolling Stones. I know that. So Brian Jones unfortunately tragically passes away, just a year after this track, at age 27, an unsolved mystery drowned in the swimming pool.

To this day, no one has the full story of what happened. But in this moment, he was deeply, deeply inebriated, wanders into the studio, wants to contribute something, and Jimmy famously has a lot of hangers on at this time that are in similar states of control versus not control at any given moment. So the story that engineer Eddie Kramer tells is that Brian walked in,

quote, actually he staggered in, he practically fell on the floor in the control room completely out of his brain. But he was a good friend of Jimmy's and Jimmy could never say no to his mates. So basically they hand him some percussion and he starts rattling stuff and it makes it to the final cut. So you walk into a kindergarten classroom and you had an instrument to each child. That's kind of exactly what happened. And the beauty of it is that that vibrass lap is so iconic in the song, and it does make the cut. So I'm putting my vote in for Brian Jones.

I didn't know that was Brian Jones playing the vibrational. That's awesome. So let's keep listening to the drums because Mitch Mitchell does some other powerful things in the song. He is basically the structure of this song is its verse, chorus, verse. And the verses are chill, and the choruses are where everything kind of explodes. So the song begins with one of those explosive choruses. we were just about to hear it. And by the way, we're calling it the chorus.

There actually isn't any lyrical content at the chorus. That's right. That's right. I'm only kind of setting aside the word chorus because the verses are... What's repeated. It's repeating and it's also kind of louder. For a lack of a better way of putting it, like the verses are where the vocals are, the lyrics are.

And then every chorus we have actually across the song, four different guitar solos. And in the drums, we have an explosion of drums and Tom's and Mitch Mitchell doing his thing. And he's doing a Motown beat. But I'd never noticed before. I never loved it. That is a Motown. I had never noticed that before until I was digging in.

But yeah, that's the snare on 1, 2, 3, 4, which at the time would have been very well known for all of the Motown hits that would have used it. That's what he's doing here. And actually, that is faithful to the original Dylan version. As we go through the song, we'll kind of point out where things are different. So in the original version, Kenneth Butry on drums

is playing the Motown beat. And then in the verse, he gets a little more chill. So here's Mitch Mitchell, chilling out. in the verses. I love that. Bupacet. And it's interesting thing that happens at the end. Listen to this churnaround. Right here. Wow. Wow. Bipa, bopette, boom.

Yeah. That's fun. It throws me every time. Yeah. I love the way these drums sound. And I remember in our previous episode, we talked about how Eddie Kramer's drums, the engineers, his drums have that sound. I think I hear it here. Yeah, you're right. Am I correct? You are correct that you're hearing the drums that are recorded by Eddie Kramer at Olympic Studios in London, and he gets that big, roomy sound. And you have Mitch Mitchell, the performer,

also contributing to that incredible sound. Oh, that's cool. Because I know this album was recorded in two different places. So this song was recorded at Olympic. So the song is tracked at Olympic. So all of the instruments, up until the guitars, at least. So the rhythm section, basically. And I believe the acoustic guitar as well is all tracked at Olympic.

So what they do is they bring the four track. Because in England, they still... We mentioned that on the Purple Hazel. Yeah, incredibly. it's recorded on four tracks, only four tracks, I should say. But eight tracks and 12 tracks exist in this moment. They just aren't in studios in England yet, interestingly. So they do the tracking in Olympic on the four track. And apparently Eddie Kramer and Chas Chandler mixed the song from the four track in Olympic studios in London. But Hendricks is not crazy about it. He isn't really happy with it.

And this is happening with a lot of other tension going on with Chandler. And at a certain point, Chandler leaves and actually sells his ownership stake. in the management company. He's out. He's out of the Jimmy Hendrick story. He leaves during the making of this record. And Jimmy and Kramer both go to New York to finish the record at a new studio. Yeah. At record plant, literally a brand new, recently built studio. It's the first record that's ever been mixed there, in fact. And he goes there at the invitation of the second engineer on this record, is already at record plan. In fact, he helped to create it. That's the guy called Gary Kellgren. He helped to build this studio. He invites Kramer to come work with him. And the team moves

moves from London to New York to finish this record together. Whole different entourage at the record plan. I see Jimmy's just, you know, like bringing in different friends when you miss New York. Well, and once Chas Chandler has gone, it gets really kind of crazy. So the Brian Joneses of the world start to like the hangers on. There's a party in the studio atmosphere, which with Chandler, it wasn't a party in the studio. He was very focused and directed. And a lot of stuff got done.

You know, two whole albums, right, in seven months were completed under his auspices. So it's a different environment. To hear the Eddie Kramer telling of it, it's a lot more freeing, and Hendricks loves the freedom. He isn't tightly confined to, first of all, four tracks. He has a lot more freedom with not even A-Tracks. They leapfrog back to 12 tracks at the record plant, and he's bringing in his baits and he's jamming,

and he's trying all kinds of things like 13-minute songs. So that's the environment in Electric Lady Land. I love that. Electric Lady Studios comes later, by the way, not to be confused with. Why don't we talk about the bass in this song? Yeah, let's talk about the bass. There's a story behind the bass guitar. I love the bass in this song.

I love the bass in this song. It's really special. When I, you know, every time before we do an episode, I always like drive to the studio and I'm like blasting the song as loud as possible, try to pretend like I'm in the studio. And I realize that when I'm listening to All Along the Watchtower, a lot of times I'm humming along with the bass. Really?

The bass really jumps out to me. It really sounds cool. And I didn't know that that's not Noel playing the bass. It's not Noel writing from the experience. He got really pissed one time while they're recording. He's down at the pub. Right. He's checked out.

He's just like, you know, Jimmy could go F himself. Jimmy end up playing the bass on the track. So can we hear a little bit of Jimmy, Jimmy on bass? He's laying it down big round, warm notes. It is. And you know what? Hearing it right now without every other instrument around it, I'll be honest, it's a little underwhelming.

But when you hear it in the context of the song, it's amazing. Maybe give me the bass with the drums. I just want to feel it. You got it. I'll do you one better. A lot of times on the show, we play a track, and as the track progresses, the player starts to do more and more stuff. So that was the beginning. By the middle of the song, he's starting to throw in some more fills and interesting stuff.

He gets a little busier. This is the second chorus. Let's listen, isolated, and I will throw in the drums to fulfill your request. That's good. Put some drums back in. I feel like you've not ruined. But like, the virus slam is going hard. I will never hear the song without picturing you doing what you just did every time that damn virus lap came in.

I wonder if somebody was like, all right, Brian, you've done really well, Brian. It's fun to go. They kept it in. No, no, it makes the song. It's a great part of the song. It is a wonderful part of the song. I love that the bass is going so strong. And it's way more prominently used, I think, than in our part one episode song, Purple Hays.

Am I wrong? It's interesting to think about it being Jimmy playing it, because that means that everything that isn't the drums. It was not played at that time. It's an overdub. Exactly. First of all, it's an overdub. And second of all, it's Jimmy playing it and he also played guitar. Therefore, it's the same performer.

We just did an episode with Patrice Russian, who did a similar thing. She's playing the roads and she's playing the baseline. And because it's the same performer on both, they match, they intertwine in a very special way. That can only happen when it's the same player doing it the same way. 100%. Yeah. It's no shade to separate bass players at all. And it's no shade to people who think, like, the music sounds better when it's actually

being played all in real time. Right, right, exactly. But, you know, this is a point in the 60s where people, everybody from the Beatles, everybody's, like, really, you know, twirling some knobs in the studio. You know, I'm also realizing as we're listening back, when we get to the guitar in just a moment, you will be hearing a lot of the complicated overdubs and splicing that was done once they got to record plant and they had more tracks to play with. One of the things that was overdubbed, to my ears, I'm pretty sure that bass was overdubbed because it is so separated.

Compared to Purple Haze from last week, that was also done on the same four track at the same studio. And there was so much bleed and it wasn't nearly as warm and round. So I think that this may have actually been overdubbed because it's so different sounding. It's very different sounding. Is there anything else from the bass you want to play? Listen, we love the bass and we love Jimmy playing it. So there's a few more cool fills. This is towards the end.

I'll put some drums in. And the song's about to end right here. Once again, the song fades out in real life, but the band had to stop playing it, and that's where they stopped playing it. So let's talk about guitars. There's an acoustic guitar on this track. Is that Jimmy playing the acoustic guitar?

So interestingly, that is not Jimmy on acoustic guitar. It's actually Dave Mason, one of the founding members of Traffic with Stevie Winwood. Oh, wow. He's playing a 12-string acoustic guitar. He is also the background vocalist in Cross Town Traffic. Great song, by the way. One of my favorite Jimmy Hendr's songs.

It's one of the best. Absolutely. That's him with the falsetto up there. Exactly. And the way Dave tells the story, says, quote, Jimmy and I sat down facing each other. So you're facing Jimmy Hendricks, and you've got a guitar and you're not Jimmy Hendricks.

Just imagine that. Imagine how intimidating that is. Jimmy was on a six-string. Mason, Dave Mason, had the 12-string guitar. And, quote, it took me 10 or 11 takes to get the timing of the intro right. Jimmy could have just as easily done it himself. That's so interesting.

I wonder why he kept him on. He might have just enjoyed. having the appearance of another band he liked or a friend of his on the track, similar to Brian Jones. As this story unfolded, I find that interesting that he didn't really need these other players, but he clearly wanted that. But he liked them, and I think that goes to the party type.

Listen, I'm torn on the party-type atmosphere in a work environment because I think sometimes it works and sometimes it's the downfall, right? Like, we all know that like some of our favorite groups is like, yeah, that album, we burned to that advance pretty quick. And if the album is, you know, shitty, then you're like, oh, you shouldn't have done that. This is one of those times where you're like, hey, it kind of worked. It kind of worked. Right.

There are a few stories I've read about how the intro was challenging for some of the players. And when I listen back, I'm kind of, I think it's because the timing is like syncopated a little bit. But let's listen together to that 12-string guitar that opens the song and think, why was this so hard? Why did it take 11 takes? Because it's pretty simple stuff. I have a theory, but do you have any thoughts on why that was hard to play?

I don't even think it was hard to play. I think this speaks to the fact that Jimmy, now that he does have that control that we've talked about, is becoming more and more of a perfectionist. You'll hear about directors, everybody from, you know, Scorsese to Wes Anderson. Wes Anderson notoriously, you might do 30 takes. You know what I mean? He just wants it right.

He just wants it right. He wants what he hears in his head played out. And I think that that makes sense. I think what it might also be is from the telling again. I think there was a challenge of the timing of it. it. And we have to remember in 1968, there's syncopated music. I mean, it's been around for a while. There's been jazz for a long time. But there are also performers for whom playing on the and of three, one, and two, and one, and two, and three and four, and one, and one, and two.

It sounds as though that was challenging to, like, get right. It's sort of like you hear stories of drummers and guitar players being taught reggae rhythms in the early 70s when they're new, and it being really hard for them to figure out how to play, like on Bob Marley, records, there are American, like there's a couple of guitar players who are brought in Mussel Shoals players. And apparently it's hard for them to get the chuck on the offbeat's right. So anyway, when I heard these stories and I listened back, I was like, maybe it's just hard to be on the and one, and two, and three, and four, and one, and two, and three, and four. So he does that throughout the song. This is the 12 string acoustic, and you'll also hear

mixed in Jimmy playing his sixth string. There's at least two guitars in the mix, and here it is. And there's a second guitar here you can really hear right here. What's interesting to me about this acoustic guitar is that it's the one element that seems to harken back most clearly to Bob Dylan. That's common to the Bob Dylan version. You're right. But even in the way that it's being played feels a little bit more, I don't know, the word I want to use is like poignant. Like there's a certain sort of like, oh man, we're in this shit together. You know what I mean? It's darker sounding.

Yeah, it's darker sounding. slowed it down. Much slower. They slowed it down and they're jabbing at that guitar. It's much slower. You're right. I tried to do. So I think the original is around 129 BPM.

This one fluctuates like crazy. I did my BPMs across the song. It kind of starts like around this part of the song is 109 to 113. Already a variation. By the end you're getting up to 119. When you get to the verses, I feel like you really slow down. Am I right? Well, in the beginning of the song, it's slower.

It's hovering around 110. By the end, you're. almost to 120. So across the song, we speed up by 10 BPM, which is the sign of human beings playing the instruments and vibing off of what the song is calling to do. Yes, but I'd even say even the BPM is getting more and more stressed out. Like even the BPM is telling a story because like his heart is starting to race. And so by the end when we get to the end where the, you know, they see the writers in the distance like, oh man, now, now we're caught up. It absolutely contributes to that feeling. I completely agree. Yeah. So I was reading that Jimmy was left handed,

which means that I guess he had to play his guitar upside down. Yeah, so this is a famous part of the Jimmy Hendrix lore is he is a lefty, but back in the day there weren't left-handed guitars, or if they were, they were hard to find even if you're Jimmy Hendrix. He would go to Manny's and just buy an off-the-rack Stratocaster for right-handed players, flip it over, and restring it so that the low strings would still be on the top. But the tensions, meaning the tensions are the things that you twist to make the strings stay on the instrument would be reversed.

And the reason why this is relevant is it contributes to his sound. What would normally be the tighter strings at the top were looser. And what would normally be the looser strings at the bottom were tighter. And the pickups were reversed too. So all of these factors adding to his innate gift as a player, which was unique in and of itself. And going back to Purple Hays, some of the new sounds, he's adding with the fuzz pedals and the octavia. He arrives at the instrument different. He's playing.

The sound is being shaped by all of these things adding up to being some. something very unique and contributing to the impossible to pin down thing of why does he sound the way he does and how is it so unique. Yeah, I'm so curious how that affects this sound, specifically on this song. Can we hear a little bit of his, can we start with his solo, his first solo? That's right. The song begins with one of four solos that play during this, what we'll be calling the chorus section of the song, and here it is.

The instrumental choruses. And notice that it's the same, this one, one distinguishing factor versus the others, it's the same rhythm that we heard in the other instruments. So all four of those phrases are mimicking that Dun-dun-dun-da-dun-d-dun-d-d-d-dum. Exactly. So let's hear what he does once we get to the first verse. So he's just kind of playing little arpeggios and fills of the three chords.

So the structure of this song, as we kind of alluded to, is very simple. The verse and the chorus are the same. It's the same three chords. The difference is in the verse he's singing and in the chorus, he's playing guitar. You're soloing. But the three chords are, you know, it's the one, the seven, and the six. It's a two-bar loop, and that's the entirety of the song. I'd love to hear the second solo.

So this is where we start to hear some interesting stuff going on with the overdubbing. So I'll play it for you, and then I'll explain what's happening. So let me just play for you what else is in the mix. It's a little bit lower, just to prepare your ears because it's a little surprising. Underneath that solo is this also in the mix. And when I put them together, they sound the same. It's the same solo being played. The difference is one is an overdub or it's just him playing guitar.

The other appears to be the wholesale track spliced in almost like a sample. Because they were going from four tracks at Olympic to 12 tracks at the Power Station. And apparently they kept re-recording. They kept overdubbing. Jimmy kept saying, I think I hear it a little bit differently. He would want to keep some of the stuff they already had, replace it with new things. And by the end of it, they just had this kind of patchwork. of overdub new isolated parts and stuff from the original multi-track.

And in the mix, you don't know that it's there, but isolated, again, what you just heard is in the final mix underneath everything else. And it's just the entirety of like a four-track. So I'll start building on that. That's the full track. So you're hearing like two Mitch Mitch Mitchells in there, right? You're hearing two jimmies. And it's interesting, contextually knowing that now, the bass is doing a lot of work.

this big new round base is covering up a lot of that because they didn't have the techniques yet to do that with other tools. They weren't able to separate all of those pieces in this kind of sample, for lack of a better word, of the original track. Anyway, that was a revelation to me as I was listening in this, how much feels like kind of a DIY collage using these brand new studio tools. Yeah, these new tools. I want to get to, I think we're coming up on the middle of the song.

There's a, I think there's a slide in here. This is probably my favorite part. This is crazy. Let's hear the slide. This is Jimmy playing slide guitar in the third solo after the second verse. Yeah. So beautiful. And then it goes into another iconic second half of that solo, I would say, where you hear his wah pedal, which he has started to use iconically.

And one of only three known guitar pedals that he was using at the time. But again, I will point out that what you're about to hear is extraordinarily over-depth sounding. So you'll be hearing not just the clean guitar you heard a moment ago. We've now spliced in something that's a little bit less clean. And to be clear, that beginning and end is in the track like that. And here's what's on top of it layering it. So it's kind of coming and going like a DJ fading in and out. Or even just as though it were an isolated track of a single instrument.

I'll give that to you in context. It's happening here. Now it's out. It's about to come back. Fascinating. how they were able to bring together all these different disparate recordings in 1968 with a 12-track technology. It's all on tape, no pro tools, no digital, no screens, no editing. It is all done by hand using tape and splicing.

Full credit to Gary Calgren and Eddie Kramer for doing this proto, this pre-tech tech. Are there any Jimmy chords in this song? I didn't hear any Jimmy chords in this song. He's really keeping it faithful to Dylan, who literally probably could not play. a Jimmy chord. I think Dylan's part of his charm was that as a troubadour, as a basic storyteller, he's using basic chords and he isn't throwing in a lot of jazz into his work. So Jimmy kind of restrains himself and he's really limiting himself to basically the blues scale. There's a lot, almost every note is part of the pentatonic scale that he plays on the guitar and sings. We'll be hearing that

in a second. But there's about four or five total notes in the melodic palette of the song across the entire song. I heard there was almost a piano on this song. Is that right? Listen, there's an incredible story that Eddie Kramer himself tells. I will leave it to the engineer who's on the session,

telling the story of how there almost was a terrible piano track. We're about Take 19, deep into it, right? And I'm hearing this, all of a sudden, I hear this really horrendous piano. Clang, clang, clang, clang called wrong chords, you know, all out of time and stuff. and it's Brian Jones.

He had slipped into the studio and he's completely out of his mind and he stumbled onto the piano right in the middle of a take. Jimmy's looking at me. Get him out of here. Get him out of here. Wow. So I walk in and, hey, Brian, come on.

Come with me. Come and sit in front of the board. You hang out here for a minute. He's literally treating him like the toddler you were bringing to with the toys. Here, come play with this. So there is no piano on the final. Thank God because they were able to get Brian Jones inebrated out of the studio, before he could ruin this incredible song. You know, Jimmy might have felt a little insecure about his voice, but we love his voice.

And I'm so excited to hear some of his isolated vocals. So can you give us verse one? There must be some kind of way out of here. Said a joker to the leave. There's too much confusion. He does change famously Dylan's lyrics at the end of this verse. Right. Yeah, the Dillon line is, none of them along the line know what any of it is worth. Right. Hendricks changed this lyric.

It's one of the only differences in the lyrics in the whole song. There's a couple of words a little later, but this is the main change that he made. Why do you think he did that? Good question. I think he changes the line here because he's making it in some ways more immediate. This is just my theory, more immediate to the year 1968. Like, it sounds more like it's speaking to those times. And I think in general, this song, even though, you know, there's the book of Isaiah,

maybe the book of revelations elements in the lyrics, all that has been said many times, in many books on Dylan's lyrics. But when I hear this, I hear a political song. Yeah, I think, you know, I hear what you're hearing. I hear, you know, the Joker and the Thief, two people who are, you know, society looks down upon, you know, and they're, and, you know, they're talking about how they can't get any relief. And, you know, there must be some way out of here. Like, you know, they sound like they are, for the lack of a better.

term, you know, turning against society. Yeah. And they're about to, like, you know, cause change. I feel like they're really, like, we're about to change this. Like, we're about to go at the system. We're about to go to society. No, I think the change he makes seems to be saying everyone's lying, right? Right.

No one will level on the line. Yeah. Nobody offers their word. Yeah. Or nobody would, literally, sorry, it's nobody offered his word. But that sounds like what Hendricks is saying is everyone's lying to us. And he obviously felt that way he was like extraordinarily opposed. He had been in the army, right?

So his sensitivity to, like, his former friends going off to war in Vietnam was heightened. Everyone was feeling that way. But he had been there. Could have been him. And that's why it's about 1968. But it's also about, like, right now. Like, we're recording this episode in 2025. And I feel like you can't go a day without somebody saying, oh, that's AI.

Oh, that's media bias. Oh, that's misinformation. Everyone's lying. Everybody's lying. It feels like even though it's written then, we feel like we're, We've been thrown smack dab back into a very 1968 environment where we're on a crazy ride, and we don't know where we're going. And we can't trust anybody.

And we can't trust anybody. But maybe I could trust this thief and maybe I can trust this Joker. That's a really interesting take. I think you're on to something with that. Can I hear a little bit of the third verse? Because obviously the third verse gives this song its title. And it's also got one of my favorite lines about the Wildcat. Can we hear verse three?

Absolutely. And I mentioned before that this song has a pretty limited melodic palette. He's not using a lot of notes. They're all the pentatonic scale. At this point, he goes to the highest note you hear in the song. He starts on the flat seventh, and here it is. These are all pentatonic notes. That image.

It's really chilling. Yeah. And what I think to me, what Hendricks does to transform the Dylan version is how cinematic it all feels. Like this is hairs on the back of your... Yes. Yes. You can see the princes, you know, in their towers. And yet here come, you know, these writers.

When the wind began to howl, the winds of change. Yeah. The coming of the fall of a society and the birth of something new. Right. And I do feel like right now, even in our society, we're experiencing disruption and change on almost every level. And so listening to this song this week, it was just like, you know, are we doomed to repeat history? Well, in some ways, I hope that we're doomed to repeat history because that means we're still present, we're still alive, and maybe some good guys will finally win at some point.

That would be nice for once, right? That would be really nice. When you said, when you mentioned what you said about Howell, it also made me realize, like, in this moment, there's probably some awareness of like Alan Ginsberg, right? Yeah. And Howl, his famous poem would have been in the air, would have been passed around. People were probably all passing around a copy of that book. But yeah, this is like also interesting to note the confluence with Dylan to Hendricks of two

different forms of folk music, you know, we say folk music, but blues is also folk music. These are both traditions that go back hundreds and hundreds of years, shared traditions of stories and music, the music itself, the pentatonic scale I keep alluding to that's in this song. So I love the thought that both of these artists have found kind of this shared song for their different shared traditions. And to be explicit about it, folk music is the shared traditions that goes back to Scotland and England and the Moors. It is European. And blues is a black tradition. So we have in this one song a sharing of a melding of traditions and kind of, I wouldn't say a passing of the torch, but in a way it is a little a passing of the torch because Dylan ended up

covering his own song from this point forward in concert. Absolutely. He would always do Hendrits' version, which he really loved. He was doing his cover of a cover of his own song. Yes. I got lost at that sentence, but I knew what you meant. I knew where I was going. I knew where you were going. All right. Now that we listen to the stems, tell me about the splits. Dylan, 100 percent, because it's a cover, but this is the moment in Dylan's career that he's about to sue and leave his former manager for ripping him off. So in the moment that the song comes out, I think Dylan gets 50% of the money because his manager is ripping him off for the other half of the other half of the other. And that would be the famous Albert Grossman. So yeah, the next year he sues him, takes him to court

and wins back, I think the royalties. But for a few months, while Jamie Hendricks is on the charts, he's only getting 50 cents on the dollar. Oh, wow. Well, after this album, the pure success of it, goes solo. And he goes on to do this famous performance at Woodstock. He continues to make music opening the Electric Lady Studios in New York, and then we lose him. And then we lose him at 27. He dies at the much too young age of 27. Luxury, we're coming up on the end of two full episodes on one of the greatest musicians ever, two of his songs. What do you think is the legacy here for Jimmy Hendricks? So I'll answer from a musician's perspective growing up playing guitar, like learning guitar, playing it. He's been in the pantheon this entire time.

He has never left the Mount Rushmore of guitar players if you're a burgeoning, a new guitar player. And I love the fact that all these years later, while there's been Eddie Van Halen, and then there was maybe Inveh. There's always guitar heroes from one generation to the next, but Jimmy has never fallen from favor. And not only that, he probably is the number one

of most rock-influenced or blues-influenced guitar, not just jazz guitar players, too, to this day. because what he brought to the instrument and the expression is so unique and impossible to replicate. As much as across two episodes, we've sort of broken down, well, he's playing the upside-down guitar and the strings and the pentatonic scales. We can kind of make a list of things he did from one song to the next, but you can never piece them together and it's a formula to do it yourself. But I don't know a single guitar player that hasn't tried, myself included. I love that. You know, for me, I think his legacy is, I just think of it as,

It's pure art, right? Like, it's a pure artist and it's art. And he might have been personally hard to get along with. Sorry, Noel. Sorry, or everybody else who left the band. But at the end of the day, I think one trait of great art that actually means something is that it continues to inspire new artists. He's inspired you.

In his own way, inspires me. You'll hear everybody from Frank Ocean to Andre 3,000. Like you said, every generation eventually comes around and saying, oh, that guy, he did something special. He did something no one else has done. He did something special that you cannot copy. You can copy it, but you're not going to do it the way he did it. You're not going to do it better. With his unique voice, his unique expression.

I sort of said this on the Purple Hays episode, but the unique marriage of singing and playing guitar where they are both unified, they are both his voice. It's almost a seamless blend of the two. No one else can do it in quite the same way. Yeah. To this day, he has absolutely missed. Well, listen, as always, you can find me on Instagram at Diallo, DIA. L-L-L-O. And on TikTok at Diallo-R-R-L. And you can find me on Instagram at L-U-X-X-U-R-Y and on TikTok at LuxuryX.

And you can follow our podcast at One-Song podcast on Instagram and TikTok for exclusive content. Also, you can watch full episodes of One Song on YouTube and Spotify. Just search for One-Song podcast. We would love it if you'd like and subscribe. Also, be sure to check out the One-Song Spotify playlist for all the songs we discuss in our episodes. You can find the link in our episode description. Listen to that on your road trip this summer. If you've made it this far, we think that means you like this podcast,

so please don't forget to give us five stars. Leave a review and share us with someone who you think would like this show. It really helps us keep it going. Luxury, help me in this thing. I'm producer, DJ, songwriter, and musicologist luxury. And I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddle. And this is one song. We will see you next time.

This episode is produced by Melissa Duanyas. Our video editor is Casey Simonson. Our associate producer is Jeremy Bimbo, mixing by Michael Hardman and engineering by Eric Hicks. Production supervision by Razak Boykin. Additional production support from Z. Taylor. The show is executive produced by Kevin Hart, Mike Stein, Brian Smiley, Eric Eddings, Eric Wael, and Leslie Guam.