On this day in 1968 — 55 years ago — Jimi Hendrix recorded his version of the Bob Dylan song “All Along the Watchtower” at Olympic Studios in London.
According to engineer Andy Johns, Hendrix had been given a tape of Dylan’s recording by publicist Michael Goldstein, who worked for Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman.
"(Hendrix) came in with these Dylan tapes and we all heard them for the first time in the studio,” recalled Johns. According to Hendrix’s regular engineer, Eddie Kramer, Hendrix cut a large number of takes on the first day, shouting chord changes at Dave Mason who had appeared at the session and played guitar.
Halfway through the session, the bass player, Noel Redding, became dissatisfied with the proceedings and left. Mason then took over on bass. According to Kramer, the final bass part was played by Hendrix himself. Hendrix's friend and Rolling Stones multi-instrumentalist, Brian Jones, played the various percussion instruments on the track.
Kramer and Chas Chandler mixed the first version of "All Along the Watchtower" on January 26, but Hendrix was quickly dissatisfied with the result and went on re-recording and overdubbing guitar parts during June, July and August at the Record Plant studio in New York.
Engineer Tony Bongiovi has described Hendrix becoming increasingly dissatisfied as the song progressed, overdubbing more and more guitar parts, moving the master tape from a four-track to a twelve-track to a sixteen-track machine. The finished version was released on the album, Electric Ladyland, in September, 1968. The single reached #5 in the British charts and #20 on the Billboard chart, Hendrix's only Top 20 entry there.
Dylan had this reaction to hearing Hendrix's version: "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."
In the booklet accompanying his Biograph album, 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."