Listen To Jimi Hendrix's Isolated 'All Along The Watchtower' Guitar Track

Jimi Hendrix was no slouch when it came to writing his own material, but like so many late-'60s rockers, he absolutely worshipped Bob Dylan.

Dylan's generational success as a singer/songwriter and solo act showed the world the power of words and music. You didn't have to be good-looking, you didn't have to dress well, you didn't even have to have a great voice, Dylan showed; you need to be able to play, you needed to have a message and you needed to believe in it.

But as powerful as Dylan was with just an acoustic guitar, even he famously concluded that his songs would be that much better if they were electrified.

To that end, no one in the late-'60s was better at making a song electric than Jimi Hendrix, who's loving Dylan tribute in his 1968 version of "All Along the Watchtower" quickly eclipsed Dylan's own version in terms of popularity and became one of Hendrix's most-enduring hits.

While Dylan's original version featured a full band, Hendrix expanded the instrumentation to include both acoustic and electric guitars. He altered the arrangement as well to include a number of fiery solos.

Hearing Jimi's isolated guitar tracks from a live performance of "All Along the Watchtower" at the Atlanta Pop Festival in 1970, we get a clearer impression of how complete a guitarist he was — even while singing lead and strutting around a stage for a live audience.

Jimi's rhythm playing is utterly solid and he stays firmly in the pocket with Mitch Mitchell and Billy Cox, even as he reaches for the stratosphere, duplicating in front of an audience one of his most iconic wah-wah guitar solos.

Listen in the player at the top of this page!

Photo: Getty Images