Rare Cobain Track Unearthed

The Nirvana box set may be on hold indefinitely, but in January a previously unreleased Kurt Cobain track surfaced on an album by experimental Seattle rock band Earth.

Cobain contributed lead vocals to a 1990 song called "Divine and Bright," finally available as one of four bonus tracks on a reissue of Earth's 1995 Sunn Amps and Smashed Guitars EP. The disc was released by Philadelphia independent label No Quarter Records.

Label owner Mike Quinn says the EP won't come with a sticker announcing Cobain's participation. "I don't want to exploit it," he says. "I think it would be disrespectful. I put out the disc as an Earth record, and I want to sell it as an Earth record."

Earth singer Dylan Carlson agrees: "If people buy it 'cause they're some Kurt-worshipping type and it makes them happy to have one more track with him on it, that's fine, but people who like Earth will buy it for Earth."

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Song Stories

“All Along the Watchtower”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience | 1968

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."

More Song Stories entries »

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