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And now, for today's
Ocho-rific Song o the Day...
-All Along the Watchtower-
covered by Jimi Hendrix
"All Along the Watchtower" is a song written and recorded by
singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. It initially appeared on his album John Wesley Harding. It has been covered by other artists in different genres, most notably by The Jimi Hendrix Experience. There is much speculation as to the song's meaning.
Dylan wrote "All Along the Watchtower" along with the other songs on John Wesley Harding over the year or so following his motorcycle accident in the summer of 1966.[1]
-All Along the Watchtower-
covered by Jimi Hendrix
"All Along the Watchtower" is a song written and recorded by
Dylan wrote "All Along the Watchtower" along with the other songs on John Wesley Harding over the year or so following his motorcycle accident in the summer of 1966.[1]
Several reviewers have pointed out that the lyrics in "All Along the Watchtower"
echo lines in the Book of Isaiah, Chapter 21, verses 5-9:
Prepare the table, watch in the watchtower, eat, drink: arise ye princes, and prepare the shield./For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth./And he saw a chariot with a couple of horsemen, a chariot of asses, and a chariot of camels; and he hearkened diligently with much heed./...And, behold, here cometh a chariot of men, with a couple of horsemen. And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground.[9][10]
Commenting on the songs on his album John Wesley Harding, in an interview published in the folk music magazine Sing Out! in October 1968, Dylan toldJohn Cohen and Happy Traum:
| “ | "I haven't fulfilled the balladeers's job. A balladeer can sit down and sing three songs for an hour and a half... it can all unfold to you. These melodies on John Wesley Harding lack this traditional sense of time. As with the third verse of "The Wicked Messenger", which opens it up, and then the time schedule takes a jump and soon the song becomes wider... The same thing is true of the song "All Along the Watchtower", which opens up in a slightly different way, in a stranger way, for we have the cycle of events working in a rather reverse order."[11] | ” |
The unusual structure of the narrative was remarked on by English Literature professor Christopher Ricks, who commented that "All Along the Watchtower" is an example of Dylan's audacity at manipulating chronological time: "at the conclusion of the last verse, it is as if the song bizarrely begins at last, and as if the myth began again."[12]
Critics have described Dylan's version as a masterpiece of understatement. In Andy Gill's words: "In Dylan's version of the song, it's the barrenness of the scenario which grips, the high haunting harmonica and simple forward motion of the riff carrying understated implications of cataclysm; as subsequently recorded by Jimi Hendrix, ... that cataclysm is rendered scarily palpable through the dervish whirls of guitar."[13]
Others have been more critical of Dylan's achievement. Dave Van Ronk, an early supporter and mentor of Dylan, made the following criticism of the song:
That whole artistic mystique is one of the great traps of this business, because down that road lies unintelligibility. Dylan has a lot to answer for there, because after a while he discovered that he could get away with anything—he was Bob Dylan and people would take whatever he wrote on faith. So he could do something like "All Along the Watchtower," which is simply a mistake from the title on down: a watchtower is not a road or a wall, and you can't go along it.[14]
::from SongMeanings.net::
There must be some kind of way out of here
Said the joker to the thief
There's too much confusion
I can't get no relief
Business men they drink my wine
Plowmen dig my earth
No one will level on the line
Nobody of it is worth
No reason to get excited
The thief he kindly spoke
There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I we've been through that
And this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now
The hour's getting late
All along the watchtower
Princes kept the view
While all the women came and went
Barefoot servants too
Outside in the cold distance
A wild cat did growl
Two riders were approaching
And the wind began to howl
There must be some kind of way out of here
Said the joker to the thief
There's too much confusion
I can't get no relief
Business men they drink my wine
Plowmen dig my earth
No one will level on the line
Nobody of it is worth
No reason to get excited
The thief he kindly spoke
There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I we've been through that
And this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now
The hour's getting late
All along the watchtower
Princes kept the view
While all the women came and went
Barefoot servants too
Outside in the cold distance
A wild cat did growl
Two riders were approaching
And the wind began to howl
::WIKI "FACTS"::
*James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix, November 27, 1942[1][2] – September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter. He is widely considered to be the greatest electric guitarist in the history of rock music,[3][4][5] and one of the most influential musicians of his era across a range of genres.[6][7][8]
*James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix, November 27, 1942[1][2] – September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter. He is widely considered to be the greatest electric guitarist in the history of rock music,[3][4][5] and one of the most influential musicians of his era across a range of genres.[6][7][8]
*His father was a soldier in the United States Army stationed at Fort Sill,Oklahoma at the time of his birth, before he was shipped to France in World War II. When he was two years old, his mother placed him in the temporary care of friends in the San Francisco Bay Area. His father received an honorable discharge from the U.S. Army on September 1, 1945, and retrieved his eldest son and legally changed his name to James Marshall Hendrix in memory of his late brother, Leon Marshall Hendrix.[18][19] He was known as "Buster" to friends and family, from birth.
*Hendrix was particularly fond of Elvis Presley, whom he saw perform in Seattle, in 1957.[29]
*Hendrix's first gig was with an unnamed band in the basement of a synagogue, Seattle's Temple De Hirsch. After too much wild playing and showing off, he was fired between sets. The first formal band he played in was The Velvetones, who performed regularly at the Yesler Terrace Neighborhood House without pay. He later joined the Rocking Kings, who played professionally at such venues as the Birdland. When his guitar was stolen (after he left it backstage overnight), Al bought him a white Silvertone Danelectro. He painted it red and had "Betty Jean" emblazoned on it — the name of his high school girlfriend.
Hendrix completed junior high at Washington Junior High School with little trouble but did not graduate from Garfield High School. Later he was awarded an honorary diploma, and in the 1990s a bust of him was placed in the school library. After he became famous in the late 1960s, Hendrix told reporters that he had been expelled from Garfield by racist faculty for holding hands with a white girlfriend in study hall. Principal Frank Hanawalt says that it was simply due to poor grades and attendance problems.[32]
*Hendrix got into trouble with the law twice for riding in stolen cars. He was given a choice between spending two years in prison or joining the Army. Hendrix chose the latter and enlisted on May 31, 1961. After completing basic training, he was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division and stationed in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. His commanding officers and fellow soldiers considered him to be a subpar soldier: he slept while on duty, had little regard for regulations, required constant supervision, and showed no skill as a marksman. For these reasons, his commanding officers submitted a request that Hendrix be discharged from the military after he had served only one year. Hendrix did not object when the opportunity to leave arose.[33] He would later tell reporters that he received a medical discharge after breaking his ankle during his 26th parachute jump. The rock music journalist Charles Cross contended in his biography of Hendrix, Room Full of Mirrors (2005) that Hendrix faked being homosexual—claiming to have fallen in love with a fellow soldier—in order to be discharged, but did not produce credible evidence to support this contention.
*Early in 1966 at the Cheetah Club on Broadway at 53rd Street, Linda Keith, the girlfriend of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, befriended Hendrix and recommended him to Stones' managerAndrew Loog Oldham and later, producer Seymour Stein. Neither man took a liking to Hendrix's music, and they both passed. She then referred Hendrix to Chas Chandler, who was ending his tenure as bassist in The Animals and looking for talent to manage and produce. Chandler liked the song "Hey Joe" and was convinced he could create a hit single with the right artist.
Impressed with Hendrix's version, Chandler brought him to London and signed him to a management and production contract with himself and ex-Animalsmanager Michael Jeffery. It was Chandler who came up with the spelling change of "Jimmy" to "Jimi".[72]
Chandler then helped Hendrix form a new band, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, with guitarist-turned-bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell, both English musicians. Shortly before the Experience was formed, Chandler introduced Hendrix to Pete Townshend and to Eric Clapton, who had only recently helped put together Cream. At Chandler's request, Cream let Hendrix join them on stage for a jam on the song "Killing Floor". Hendrix and Clapton remained friends up until Hendrix's death. The first night he arrived in London, he began a relationship with Kathy Etchingham that lasted until February 1969. She later wrote a well received autobiographical book about their relationship and the sixties London scene in general.[73]
The first Jimi Hendrix Experience album, Are You Experienced, was released in the United Kingdom on May 12, 1967 and shortly thereafter internationally, outside of USA and Canada. It contained none of the previously released (outside North America) singles or their B sides ("Hey Joe/Stone Free", "Purple Haze/51st Anniversary" and "The Wind Cries Mary/Highway Chile"). Only The Beatles'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band prevented Are You Experienced from reaching No. 1 on the UK charts.
Although very popular internationally at this time, the Experience had yet to crack America, their first single there failed to sell.[81] Their chance came when Paul McCartney recommended the group to the organizers of the Monterey International Pop Festival. This proved to be a great opportunity for Hendrix, not only because of the large audience present at the event, but also because of the many journalists covering the event who wrote about him. The performances were filmed by D. A. Pennebaker and later shown in some movie theaters around the country in early 1969 as the concert documentary Monterey Pop, which immortalized Hendrix's iconic burning and smashing of his guitar at the finale of his performance.
***
***
Hendrix's last public performance was an informal jam at
Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in Soho with Burdon and his latest band, War.
*After initial success in Europe, he achieved fame in the United States following his 1967 performance at the Monterey Pop Festival. Later, Hendrix headlined the iconic 1969 Woodstock Festival and the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival. He often favored raw overdriven amplifiers with high gain and treble and helped develop the previously undesirable technique of guitar amplifier feedback.[9] Hendrix popularized use of the wah-wah pedal in mainstream rock which he often used to deliver an exaggerated pitch in his solos, particularly with high bends and use of legato. He was influenced by blues artists such as B.B. King,Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Albert King and Elmore James,[10][11][12][13] rhythm and blues and soul guitarists Curtis Mayfield, Steve Cropper, as well as by funk and some modern jazz.[14] As a record producer, Hendrix also broke new ground in using the recording studio as an extension of his musical ideas. He was one of the first to experiment with stereophonic phasing effects for rock recording.
Hendrix won many of the most prestigious rock music awards in his lifetime, and has been posthumously awarded many more, including being inducted into the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005. An English Heritage blue plaque was erected in his name on his former residence at Brook Street, London, in September 1997. A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (at 6627 Hollywood Blvd.) was dedicated in 1994. In 2006, his debut US album, Are You Experienced, was inducted into the United States National Recording Registry, and Rolling Stone named Hendrix the top guitarist on its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all-time in 2003.[15] He was the first person inducted into the Native American Music Hall of Fame.
***
Hendrix's last public performance was an informal jam at
Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in Soho with Burdon and his latest band, War.
***
Early on September 18, 1970, Jimi Hendrix died in London. He had spent the latter part of the previous evening at a party and was picked up by girlfriend Monika Dannemann and driven to her flat at the Samarkand Hotel, 22 Lansdowne Crescent, Notting Hill. According to the estimated time of death, from autopsy data and statements by friends about the evening of September 17, he died within a few hours after midnight, though no precise estimate was made at the original inquest.[111]
Dannemann claimed in her original testimony that after they returned to her lodgings the evening before, Hendrix, unknown to her, had taken nine of her prescribedVesperax sleeping pills. The normal medical dose was half a tablet, but Hendrix was unfamiliar with this very strong German brand. According to surgeon John Bannister, the doctor who initially attended to him, Hendrix had asphyxiated in his own vomit, mainly red wine which had filled his airways, as the autopsy was to show.[112] For years, Dannemann publicly claimed that she had only discovered that her lover was unconscious and unresponsive sometime after 9 a.m., that Hendrix was alive when placed in the back of the ambulance after half past eleven, and that she rode with him on the way to the hospital; the latter two are denied by the ambulance crew. However, Dannemann's comments about that morning were often contradictory, varying from interview to interview.[113] Police and ambulance statements reveal that there was no one but Hendrix in the flat when they arrived at 11:27 a.m., and not only was he dead when they arrived on the scene, but was fully clothed and had been dead for some time.[114]
Later, Dannemen claimed that former road managers Gerry Stickels and Eric Barrett had been present before the ambulance was called and had removed some of Hendrix's possessions, including some of his most recent messages. Lyrics written by Hendrix, which were found in the apartment, led Eric Burdon to make a premature announcement on the BBC-TV program 24 Hours that he believed Hendrix had committed suicide. Burdon often claimed he had been telephoned by Dannemann after she discovered that Jimi failed to wake up.[115]
Following a libel case brought in 1996 by Hendrix's long-term English girlfriend Kathy Etchingham, Monika Dannemann committed suicide.
***
A former Animals "roadie," James "Tappy" Wright, published a book in May 2009 claiming Hendrix's manager, Mike Jeffery, admitted to him that he had Hendrix killed because the rock star wanted to end his management contract.[116] John Bannister, the doctor who attended the scene of his death in 1970 stated in 2009 that it "sounded plausible".[117]
It was claimed that Mike Jeffery was not "in London,"
he was in Spain when Jimi died in London on September 18, 1970.
he was in Spain when Jimi died in London on September 18, 1970.
"There was a freak storm across Mallorca and all the phone lines were down. Somebody told Mike that Jimi had been trying to phone him. The first call that got through was to say Jimi was dead. Mike was terribly upset at the thought of Jimi not being able to get through to him." - Trixie Sullivan, secretary/assistant for Mike Jeffery[118]
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