All Along the Watchtower might now be synonymous with Jimi Hendrix. However, the track was originally written and released by Bob Dylan on his eighth record, John Wesley Harding (1967). The Hendrix version, released within a year of Dylan's as a single from his final studio album, Electric Ladyland, breathed new life into the song.
It signaled a new sophistication in the virtuoso's studio work, one that would later appear fully realized on the posthumous release First Rays of the New Rising Sun. Yet, the recording sessions for Watchtower – held between Olympic Studios in London and the Record Plant in New York in 1968 – were marked by frustration and studio mishaps. This heady combination would ultimately contribute to the song's brilliance.
