Under The Influence (Slight Return)

Since you guys are obviously interested in the subject, here´s one more piece on Dylan under the influence, inspired by Derek Barker´s recent book (see my post below). Tons of traffic here during the past few days, but disappointingly only one comment... You can do better than that, amigos.

Almost everybody knows Jimi Hendrix once covered a Dylan song with great success, so I´m not even going to mention the title here. But most people don´t realize that Dylan once did a Hendrix-cover as well. They are forgiven though, as it only happened one time, and live in Australia at that.

Dylan first tried out Jimi´s Dolly Dagger at a ´92 rehearsal for the David Letterman show, Barker informs us, after talking with his guitar tech about Hendrix´s sound. It wasn´t performed on the programme though, but it got a one-off live outing two months later in the fair city of Perth, on March 18, ´92. Guitarist John Jackson does a remarkably adequate Hendrix imitiation, while Bob seems to be enjoying himself tremendously on vocals. Look out!

Now I knew from Charles Shaar Murray´s excellent book on Hendrix (Crosstown Traffic) that Dolly Dagger was inspired by New York super-groupie Devon Wilson, who was apparently one of the most important women in Jimi´s short life. On Hendrix´s twenty-seventh birthday party, she walked out of the door with Mick Jagger on her arm. Which just might have been Mick´s revenge, as Hendrix had done his best to lure Marianne Faithfull away from the Stones vocalist just a few years earlier.

Barker offers the following additional information: Jagger apparently cut his finger at said party, and Wilson rushed over to Jagger´s side and sucked his finger until the bleeding stopped. The episode took place in full view of Hendrix, who later wrote the line ´she drinks her blood from a jagged edge...´ in Dolly Dagger. Great stuff.

Jimi Hendrix - Dolly Dagger MP3

Bob Dylan - Dolly Dagger (live Perth ´92 MP3)