A legend covering another legend, eh? It happens, sometimes. Springsteen has covered Waits songs, Clapton has covered JJ Cale, and Ralph McTell has covered John Martyn. Hendrix has done Dylan, of course, on “All along the watchtower” --- and a much superior version it's generally accepted to be --- but I didn't realise until yesterday when I was watching an Irish TV drama called “Love/Hate” --- brilliant, it is --- that he also covered this one.
A classic in its own right, there is not surprisingly a world of difference between Bob Dylan's original “Like a rolling stone” and the version Hendrix put out, and the song has been covered by umpteen artistes down the years, but I think this one really stands out. Where Dylan wrote the song as a kind of almost acoustic folk protest song, or a bitter ballad (I'm not that into Dylan so don't sue me!) Hendrix makes it much slower and bluesier, rockier, powerful, mesmerising. As of course, he did any song he approached.
Here we go: see what you think of the two side by side.