After Simon and Garfunkel's first album, 1964's Wednesday Morning, 3 a.m., stiffed, a bummed-out Paul Simon packed up and moved to London. There he might have remained, playing coffeehouses, if Wednesday Morning producer Tom Wilson hadn't come up with the clever idea of doctoring the album's "Sounds of Silence" with Byrds-style folk-rock instrumentation. The single hit Number One in late 1965, luring Simon back to New York and to a reunion with Art Garfunkel. A few months earlier, though, Simon quickly recorded this solo album for CBS Records, U.K., with nine of the twelve songs that later found their way onto Simon and Garfunkel's 1966 LPs Sounds of Silence and Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. Tracks to treasure are "Kathy's Song" and "Leaves That Are Green," both even more wistful than the duo's versions. The LP (in its first-ever U.S. release) offers numerous karaoke opportunities for Garfunkel wanna-be's — and you know who you are.

“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."