Jimi Hendrix’s reworking of Bob Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower has been named the best cover version of all time.
It heads a list of the top 50 cover versions chosen by music critics working for the Daily Telegraph.
To qualify, a song had to be well established by one artist, then given a new lease of life by another.
The Telegraph says Hendrix’s version of a ‘so-so track’ from Dylan’s John Wesley Harding album completely outgunned the original.
“A light, scampering ballad re-emerged as a mini-epic of foreboding with Hendrix’s heavy three-chord intro hanging like a thundercloud and Dylan’s lyrics sounding an ominous epitaph for the 1960s,” it said.
Second were the Pet Shop Boys for their 1987 version of Elvis Presley’s You Were Always on My Mind with Sid Vicious’s version of My Way at No 3.
The full top 10 was:
1) All Along the Watchtower – Jimi Hendrix Experience, 1968, orig. Bob Dylan, 1967
2) You Were Always on My Mind – Pet Shop Boys, 1987, orig. Elvis Presley, 1972 (after Brenda Lee, 1971)
3) My Way – Sid Vicious, 1979, orig. Frank Sinatra, 1969 (after Paul Anka, 1969)
4) Hallelujah – Jeff Buckley, 1993, orig. Leonard Cohen, 1984
5) Respect – Aretha Franklin, 1967, orig. Otis Redding, 1965
6) Tainted Love – Soft Cell, 1981, orig. Gloria Jones, 1964
7) Mr Tambourine Man – The Byrds, 1965, orig. Bob Dylan, 1964
8) Twist and Shout – The Beatles, 1963, orig. the Isley Brothers, 1960
9) Comfortably Numb – Scissor Sisters, 2004, orig. Pink Floyd, 1979
10) Mr Bojangles – Nina Simone, 1971, orig. Jerry Jeff Walker, 1967
Credit: Ananova