"ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER" JIMI HENDRIX (1968)

This month, the Mental Jukebox revisits the movie soundtracks of the nineties. The music I’m highlighting are some of my personal favorites. In many cases, the movies themselves were huge for me as well. But the focus will still be on the music – as always. Let’s bring on the throwback classics, the grunge, the gangsta rap, and the indie gems. #31DaysOf90sMovieSongs

Movie: Forrest Gump

As legendary as Bob Dylan is, I understand that he’s not for everyone. Some people just can’t listen past Dylan’s nasal-infused vocal delivery. Jimi Hendrix wasn’t exactly the most vocally gifted musician either. But whatever he lacked as a singer he more than made up for as a guitar player. The thing about his rendition of the Dylan classic “All Along the Watchtower” is he lit every strand of folk and Americana roots from the song on fire, burned those elements to the ground and then made the fire rise even higher with an electric reboot.

Throughout my middle and high school years, I lived next door to a Jimi Hendrix fanatic. My brother introduced me to Jimi’s impressive catalog, which was incredibly prolific given his short life span. The thing that immediately drew me in to his music was a guitar playing style that almost sounded otherworldly. It wasn’t rock. It wasn’t blues. But it was this crazy blend of the two that seemed to be so effortless to Jimi but impossible for others to emulate. You can’t simply play the same notes that Jimi played and expect it sound the same. It was the way in which he navigated back and forth between those two genres so easily that makes “All Along the Watchtower” one of the greatest cover songs of all time.

“No reason to get excited. The thief, he kindly spoke. There are many here among us. Who feel that life is but a joke.”

"LITTLE WING" THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE (1967)

For the month of January, I’m selecting some of the most memorable and influential songs of the 60’s. While they all hail from the same decade, these are some of my favorite songs of any era. They remind me that the 60’s were so much more than just Woodstock and psychedelic rock. It was a flourishing period for blues, folk, progressive and straight-ahead rock. #31DaysOf60sSongs

While I was in high school, I had various introductions to classic rock. Friends introduced me to Zeppelin. A radio station introduced to bands like Cream, The Doors, among others. And my younger brother (I know, usually it’s the other way around). introduced me to an ultra-talented guitarist who was a mediocre singer, but had these amazing playing skills, lit his axe on fire and navigated his way around blues and rock nearly effortlessly. His more brash bangers were the songs I liked best initially, but it’s the quiet strength of “Little Wing” that has made it one of the most enduring Hendrix recordings for me personally.

There’s a recording of the song at the Monterey Pop Festival where Hendrix says: “I got the idea like, when we were in Monterey and I was just looking at everything around. So I figured that I take everything I see around and put it maybe in the form of a girl maybe, somethin' like that, you know, and call it 'Little Wing', and then it will just fly away.” This, to me, captures the creativity and essence of the psychedelic movement. The mood and atmosphere was so strong, they deserved to be personified through a gorgeous blues guitar riff, the unexpected glockenspiel and an incredible imagination.

“Take anything you want from me. Anything. Fly on little wing.”