The two guitarists Bob Dylan thought were a level above him: “A step further”
Bob Dylan is perhaps one of the most covered artists of all time, and given the vastness of his back catalogue and his undeniably enormous legacy as an artist, it’s hardly surprising that so many other artists have opted to pay tribute to the songwriter through their own interpretations of his music.
While there are many Dylan covers of songs that he had previously had success with, some more devoted followers of his have selected deep cuts of his to try their hand at over the years.
It isn’t just smaller acts that whip out covers of their musical hero, either, as several big hitters in the world of music have also covered Dylan in the past. Some close associates and contemporaries of his, such as Joan Baez, Johnny Cash and Eric Clapton, have gotten a huge amount of mileage out of recording versions of Dylan’s music or performing his songs in live concerts.
One might argue that some of these covers have eclipsed the originals and shed more of a light on their popularity, with The Byrds’ version of ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ is a prime example of a Dylan cover that has outperformed the original version.
But what does Dylan himself make of all the covers of his material? Notoriously a man of few words, it’s hard to get much of an opinion from Dylan on anything, and even if he truly loved something, he rarely made a big song and dance about his positive feelings towards other people’s tributes to his work. However, there are two artists that he has noted in the past as having played his songs far better than he could ever have done and given them such an outstanding reimagining that he couldn’t help but admire.
One group that were notable fans of Dylan’s work were the Grateful Dead, and while they too are an act with a vast discography, with much of it coming in the form of live albums and compilations of rarities, they’ve made room to perform covers of at least 15 different Dylan tracks in various capacities.
With songs such as ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue’, ‘Visions of Johanna’ and ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door’ being among their repertoire, the country rock jam band are no strangers to heralding Dylan’s songwriting, and Dylan himself believes that guitarist Jerry Garcia was one of the only artists who could out-do him when it came to performing his music.
In a 1997 interview with Edna Gunderson, Dylan said in typically self-deprecating fashion that he didn’t believe he’d made any “great-sounding records,” and that Garcia was the one who was able to prove to him that a live capacity is where his songs spring into life. “He took a lot of the songs and actually recorded them and sang them a step further than they were on my records,” Dylan said. “He heard where they should go.” This supposedly inspired Dylan to flesh out his songs when performing them live, and pushed him to elevate his own sound at gigs.
Part of what made Dylan’s songwriting so adaptable was the openness of his compositions. Unlike many songwriters whose material feels inseparable from a particular arrangement or vocal style, Dylan often left enough space within his songs for other musicians to completely reinterpret them. His lyrics carried strong imagery and emotional ambiguity, allowing artists to project their own identities onto the material without losing the essence of the original composition.
That flexibility is especially evident in the way Hendrix transformed ‘All Along the Watchtower’. Rather than simply covering the track, he rebuilt its atmosphere entirely through towering guitar work and dramatic dynamics, turning a restrained acoustic meditation into something apocalyptic and cinematic.
Dylan’s willingness to embrace Hendrix’s interpretation also says much about his own artistic philosophy, revealing a songwriter more interested in seeing his music evolve than preserving it in a fixed form.
The other act of note that Dylan sang the praises of for his renditions of his songs was Jimi Hendrix. Best known for his version of the John Wesley Harding track ‘All Along the Watchtower’, Hendrix can be placed alongside the Byrds in the regard that he took the song to a greater level of notoriety than Dylan ever did, and was able to transform the track from being a simple folk-rock track to a bluesy, psychedelic masterpiece. However, there are other tracks of Dylan’s that Hendrix notably covered, including ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ and ‘Drifter’s Escape’, and Dylan couldn’t be prouder of the fact that Hendrix was able to reshape his music.
“It overwhelmed me, really,” Dylan told the Florida Sun-Sentinel in 1995. “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.” Referring specifically to his version of ‘All Along the Watchtower’, Dylan even remarked that “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.” Praise doesn’t get much higher than this.
Never Miss A Tale
The Far Out Bob Dylan Newsletter
All the latest stories about Bob Dylan from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.