Like Johnny Cash, Ray Charles was a tough old man who kept making music right up to the end, probably because everybody was too scared to tell him to knock it off. When he died in June, he was readying Genius Loves Company, his version of Frank Sinatra's Duets, featuring pop stars such as James Taylor, Bonnie Raitt, Elton John and Norah Jones. The tone is reverential and warm, as the Genius sings "It Was a Very Good Year" with Willie Nelson, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" with Johnny Mathis and "Fever" with Natalie Cole. B.B. King, the one guest who can approach Charles as a peer, pushes him to play a little blues piano. But the best moment is the live "Crazy Love": Van Morrison and Charles sing together in real time, two grizzled cats trying to top each other, competitive yet completely in tune.

“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."