Since his old band made the greatest unplugged album ever, Dave Grohl deserves credit for simply having the stones to release a stripped-down Foo Fighters disc. But Skin and Bones — recorded live during three recent Los Angeles shows — lacks the revelatory power of its predecessor: Grohl sometimes seems unwilling to stick with bare-bones arrangements, pushing his giant band (which included the Wallflowers' Rami Jaffee, violinist Petra Haden and former Foo Pat Smear) into unnecessary big-rock crescendos in the final bars. Still, the album's best and most restrained moments — the mostly guitar-and-voice opener, ""Razor""; the plaintive, folky take on ""Big Me""; and the climactic, slow-building ""Everlong"" — illustrate how Grohl's songwriting gift moved him out of Kurt Cobain's shadow in the first place.

“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."