Steve Hackett, Tokyo, Watchtower

It was one of those early early morning internet rambles, and I ended up listening to Steve Hackett & John Wetton's version of "All Along the Watchtower" from The Tokyo Tapes. The guitar work was pretty impressive, but I found the vocals more than a little bit distracting. It--I assume it was John Wetton--was a decent voice...maybe even a good one...but the delivery on this song was not to my liking. It just kind of bounced on the surface of the song, adding nothing to it at all. Which made me start thinking about Jimi Hendrix's version, and how powerful his vocal was...but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that his delivery was kind of just bouncing on the surface, too. So I started trying to hear the vocal delivered in a different way, and then I tried to remember how Dylan did it originally. Realizing it was the 21st century, I went over to Amazon where they let me play the song for free, and oh oh oh oh oh oh oh what a feeling. Dylan just nestles into that song, then he flutters a bit, spreads his wings, and flies away. For a guy who can't sing, he sure can sing.

And now ahmo do my version.

First Go:

http://phonynoam.tumblr.com/post/176528058680/watchtower-8118-321-pm