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3 Covers That Influenced How the Original Artist Played the Song Live

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19.06.2026

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3 Covers That Influenced How the Original Artist Played the Song Live

These cover songs were so profoundly good that the original artists changed the way they performed them live.

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Some cover songs are just the original in a different font, at which point, what’s the use of that? But a select few covers have transcended their predecessors so profoundly that they’ve inspired the original artist to change how they play it live. Not many, of course. But these three managed to do that to an extent.

“All Along the Watchtower” by Jimi Hendrix

Rock and roll icon Jimi Hendrix was famously a Bob Dylan fanatic. So, it’s no wonder that his cover version of “All Along the Watchtower” paid appropriate homage to the original while also completely reinventing the composition. “All Along the Watchtower” appeared on Dylan’s 1967 album John Wesley Harding, and according to him, no one paid much attention to it. Until Hendrix put his spin on it in 1968.

Hendrix’s........

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