Listen to the isolated bass for Jimi Hendrix song ‘All Along the Watchtower’
‘All Along The Watchtower’ is proof that some songs weren’t written for their creators. Originally penned by Bob Dylan and released on his 1967 album John Wesley Harding, the track was subsequently picked up by Jimi Hendrix and transformed into the trunk-swinging rock classic we all know and love. Here, we’ve trawled the web to bring you this isolated recording of the track’s undulating bass line.
Jimi Hendrix had the good fortune of hearing ‘All Along The Watchtower’ before anyone else, with Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman and publicist Michael Goldstein regularly providing the guitarist with demo tapes of forthcoming Dylan songs before they had been recorded for his albums.
On listening to the track for the first time, Hendrix was “filled with the joy and sadness of life”, the same evoked by the singer-songwriter’s impressive lyrics. “Sometimes, I play Dylan’s songs and they are so much like me that it seems to me that I wrote them,” he once said. “I have the feeling that ‘Watchtower’ is a song I could have come up with, but I’m sure I would never have finished it.”
Shortly after hearing Dylan’s demo, Hendrix was approached by Traffic’s Dave Mason, with whom he was working on and off at that time. The pair discussed Dylan’s latest record and shared their mutual enthusiasm for ‘All Along The Watchtower’. Already convinced of the song’s power, Hendrix decided to cover the track, with Mason agreeing to play rhythm guitar on a 12-string acoustic
The original idea was that Noel Redding would provide bass and Mitch Mitchell drums. However, Redding later walked out of the studio after expressing his distaste for Hendrix’s amped-up version and the Experience’s unproductive sessions. Mason then took Redding’s place on bass but has since claimed that Hendrix most likely rerecorded the bass part himself, having become dissatisfied with how the song was developing.
As the sessions continued, Hendrix added further layers of guitar, overdubbing to the extent that the master had to be moved from a four-track mixer to a twelve-track and then to a 16-track. In this isolated recording, all of those layers have been removed, leaving only that foundational bassline. Make sure you check out the recording below if you haven’t already.
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