The inconsistent double live album One More Car, One More Rider strives to represent the harder and softer sides of Eric Clapton. Sometimes, on warhorses such as "Hootchie Coochie Man" and "Have You Ever Loved a Woman," he transports listeners to the Delta or Chicago's South Side, where a titan of the blues is throwing down bitter wisdom. But then there are those times when old Slowhand goes to his mushy place, singing nondescript odes such as "My Father's Eyes" as though he's chasing Sting for some sensitive-man prize. Clapton still possesses one of the most arresting guitar sounds on the planet, a laserlike beam of pure tone. But he rarely uses it to roar, and when he does — on a rearranged "Badge," complete with dramatic pauses, or on the coda of the rocking "Layla" that contains some of the most adventuresome improvisation he's recorded in years — it only becomes painfully clear just how often this car is riding on cruise control.

“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."