Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan — A Melodious Duo

Jimi Hendrix knew good lyrics when he heard them. When Richie Havens slipped Jimi Bob Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower lyrics, an epic inter-racial music exchange took place, the likes of which never yet bested.

Jimi accepted the poetry and filled it with his energy and guitar genius, and meshed it with his psychedelic experience. All Along the Watchtower was honored in the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001.

Hendrix was a poet himself, writing most of his songs, but the number one best-selling single of his career was All Along the Watch Tower.

In the greatest tribute of all, Dylan said: “I liked Jimi Hendrix’s record of this and ever since he died I’ve been doing it that way… Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it’s a tribute to him in some kind of way.”

All Along the Watchtower stands as one of the great collaborative pieces of rock and roll. It is regarded as the greatest all-time cover, 47th on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and the number one best selling single ever recorded by Hendrix.

Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix were born within seventeen months of each other (March 24th, 1941; November 27, 1942) respectively. They did not come from towns renown for music: Seattle, Washington and Hibbing, Minnesota. Both were singer-songwriters, often photographed with their guitars slung over their shoulders like traveling minstrels. Each had afros that were often the topic of the press both the music and fashion world. In fact, the many similarities between the two sparked some interesting banter on both sides of the Atlantic. Some journalists referred to Jimi as the black Dylan.

In many ways, the two were worlds apart. Jimi was much more talented than Dylan. He not only composed great lyrics and sang well. He manipulated his guitar to be at one with him and the story he was telling. At the prompting of his fingers, his Fender Stratocaster howled, screamed, and exploded.

Having started their careers miles apart, both migrated to New York’s thriving Greenwich Village club scene which provided them a hip venue and a springboard, for both, to international acclaim.

Hendrix told Rolling Stone magazine in 1969 that, “I love Dylan. I only met him once, about three years ago, back at the Kettle of Fish [a folk-rock era hangout] on MacDougal Street. That was before I went to England. I think both of us were pretty drunk at the time, so he probably doesn’t remember it.”

Though they were not close friends, Jimi was a huge fan of Dylan and covered at least four of his tunes, both live and in the studio. These tracks include “Like a Rolling Stone,” “All Along the Watchtower,” “Drifter’s Escape” and “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?”

Around Greenwich Village, Richie Havens was referred to as the third point in the magic triangle that connects Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix. Havens also covered many of Dylan’s songs, such as “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”, “If Not For You”, and “Lay Lady Lay”. Havens first witnessed Jimi play in at the Cafe Wha and was so impressed. He hipped him to everyone. “He was a very shy person, quiet person,” Havens said, “until he got on stage; then he grew two feet taller.” Havens takes credit for handing Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower lyrics to Jimi. Dylan and Hendrix probably did not spend more than a couple of hours together in their entire lives, they admired and respected each other. Dylan said, “My songs are different and I don’t expect others to make attempts to sing them because you have to get somewhat inside and behind them and it’s hard enough for me to do it sometimes, and then obviously you have to be in the right frame of mind. But Jimi “sang them exactly the way they were intended to be sung and he played them the same way. He did them the way I would’ve done them if I was him.” In a great tribute to Hendrix, Dylan said “now that years have gone by, I see that the message must have been his message through and through, not that I ever could articulate the message that well myself, but in hearing Jimi cover it, I realize he must’ve felt it pretty deeply, inside and out, and that somewhere back there his soul and my soul we’re in the same desert…It’s not a wonder to me that he recorded my songs but rather that he recorded so few of them because they were all his.”

Jimi felt that same cosmic oneness with Dylan. He told Beat Instrumental in 1969 that, “Sometimes I do a Dylan song and it seems to fit me so right that I figure maybe I wrote it. Dylan didn’t always do it for me as a singer, not in the early days, but then I started listening to the lyrics. That sold me.”

Jimi’s take on Dylan’s Just Like a Rolling Stone blew people away. It was part of his famous set at the 1967 Monterrey Pop Festival. He performed it so well that it launched him into United States stardom.

No telling what Dylan and Hendrix could have done together if Jimi had lived longer. At some point, they will be reunited for a cosmic adventure.