The music of the late Vic Chesnutt radiated black humor, ragged charm and a vulnerability that was often alarming. Cowboy Junkies successfully retain those qualities on Demons, a collection of Chesnutt covers that sets his striking lyrics against coiled guitars and baleful church organs. With her smoky alto and expertly restrained delivery, Margo Timmons turns out to be the perfect conduit for Chesnutt's tales of loneliness. She can make songs like the slowly drifting "Betty Lonely" radiate desperation while barely raising her voice above a murmur. Occasionally, things get too sleepy: The demure, supper-club reading of Chesnutt's magnificent "Square Room" fells a bit too wistful to be paired with lyrics about drinking yourself to death. But the Junkies' grizzled, slightly-snarling take on the cynical celebrity put-down "Ladle" more than compensates.

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“All Along the Watchtower”

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."