Exploring the strange spiritual connection between Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan
The career trajectories of Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix seem to be completely separate endeavours. The two had very different sounds and different outlooks on life and attracted different fan bases. In fact, even though they both rose to fame in a music industry that felt intrinsically connected and constantly overlapping, they only met face-to-face once. It appears that Dylan and Hendrix seem to have nothing in common, and yet, it would be foolish for us to ignore that something that transcends personality, art and lifestyle appears to connect the two.
It all begins with Jimi Hendrix’s covers of Bob Dylan’s songs. Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why they’re so good? Hendrix was no stranger to covering other people’s work. For instance, he opened one of his shows with ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’, at a moment when Paul McCartney called it “the ultimate compliment”.
Additionally, if you listen to the posthumous Hendrix album Valleys of Neptune, you can enjoy an elongated rendition of Cream’s ‘Sunshine of Your Love’, which is instrumental and sees Hendrix shred like the world knew he could. Both of these covers are exceptional, but listening to them and others similar, while the talent of Hendrix is on full display throughout, there is no escaping the fact his rendition of Bob Dylan’s songs is leagues ahead of anything else he attempted.
Hendrix was always a big fan of Bob Dylan, and while he believed in the subjective nature of art, he said that people who didn’t like Bob Dylan weren’t paying close enough attention. “All those people who don’t like Bob Dylan’s songs should read his lyrics,” he said. “They are filled with the joys and sadness of life.”
Hendrix also said that he felt a deep connection with some of Bob Dylan’s songs, so much so that he convinced himself he would likely have written them had Bob Dylan not gotten there first. “I am as Dylan,” he said. “None of us can sing normally. Sometimes, I play Dylan’s songs and they are so much like me that it seems to me that I wrote them. 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.”
The song that Hendrix mentions, ‘All Along The Watchtower’, is his most famous Bob Dylan cover, and his rendition resonated with Dylan himself to such an extent that he changed the structure of the original track to match Hendrix’s version. “I liked Jimi Hendrix’s record of this, and ever since he died, I’ve been doing it that way,” he said. “Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it’s a tribute to him in some kind of way.”
‘All Along The Watchtower’ wasn’t the only Bob Dylan cover that Hendrix performed, either. He also had his own version of the classic, ‘Like A Rolling Stone’, which may not be as famous a cover but is a wonderful piece of music all the same. You can listen to it on the album Iconic Performances from the Monterey International Pop Festival, and everything about how Hendrix plays the track is perfect. The chord progression with hints of distortion, his improvised guitar runs in between phrases and the strange inflexions he puts on the vocals, it’s like ‘Watchtower’, in that it feels as though Hendrix is performing a song which is an extension of himself
Jeff Beck saw Hendrix perform the track at one of his earliest London gigs. “He came on, and I went, ‘Oh, my God’,” recalled Beck. “He had the military outfit on and hair that stuck out all over the place. They kicked off with [Bob Dylan’s] ‘Like a Rolling Stone’, and I thought, ‘Well, I used to be a guitarist’.”
So, why does Jimi Hendrix cover Bob Dylan so well? I would argue that it’s because the two share a spiritual connection in that they represent parts of music they wish they could explore further. Bob Dylan was always renowned as a lyricist, no matter how much he tried to embrace instrumentation and rock. At the same time, Hendrix was constantly revered for his guitar playing, even though he loved writing lyrics and poetry.
Who could forget when Bob Dylan took to the stage at Newport and was met with boos as he pulled out an electric guitar? There was something about rock music that appealed to Dylan, and while a lot of his music saw him embrace that style despite the critique surrounding him doing so, it was never a genre that he could wholeheartedly throw himself into without accepting a great deal of backlash.
Contrast that with Jimi Hendrix, who was constantly praised as one of the greatest guitarists in rock but wanted recognition for his lyrical ability as well. Patti Smith recalled meeting Hendrix, and it was clear to her that he wished he could be recognised more as a writer.
“I got to talk to him once about 50 years ago. And for a young girl, he was everything you would want in your rock and roll star,” she said. “[He] loved poetry. He often spoke not in the most favourable way about his poetry. He didn’t think he was the greatest writer. He really admired Bob Dylan, but he was a wonderful poet.”
Hendrix and Dylan embodied sides of music that they both wished they could explore deeper. Hendrix took great care when covering Bob Dylan’s songs because he was as passionate about them as he was about anything he wrote himself. Equally, Bob Dylan continued playing Hendrix’s versions of his songs because he felt they represented a more rock-heavy side to his music, which he was always keen on pushing further.
Despite their careers taking different paths and their music sounding dissimilar on the surface, the two musicians represent a deeper part of creativity that sees them constantly linked.
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