The list of credits and collaborations that the late Traffic guitarist and session legend Dave Mason chalked up over a storied life of musical triumphs is all kinds of incredible.
The Rolling Stones, George Harrison, Michael Jackson, Fleetwood Mac… Where do you stop? Eric Clapton, Delaney & Bonnie, Graham Nash… the list goes on and it of course includes some era-defining work with Jimi Hendrix that would give us, arguably, the greatest cover song of all time, All Along the Watchtower.
When we read through Mason’s myriad collaborations, particularly in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, he appears to us as some Zelig-like figure. In the parlance of the Swinging Sixties, he was there, man.
Article continues below“I was aware of Jimi when he first came to London, even before he had ever made a record,” Mason once recalled in a Guitar World interview. “London was a conglomeration of great people all in one place. There were only so many studios and a few good engineers around at the time, so it was inevitable that people would run into each other from time to time.”
“I met Jimi at a late-night club one night and just started talking to him,” said Mason. “He was a Traffic fan and I remember he got up and played with the band that was there that night and I just said, ‘Wow!’ [laughs].”
The idea for All Along the Watchtower came like many of the world’s best ideas, at a party. We can only imagine this gathering. But there we have the heroes of this story, Mason and Hendrix, and Bob Dylan was playing on the turntable.
“It was a Saturday or Sunday and we were in London and we got together somewhere. We were invited over to this girl’s apartment,” said Mason, speaking to Guitar World in 2015. “There were a lot of people there, and we just dropped by. She had the first copy of John Wesley Harding, the new Bob Dylan album, and we had to hear it. So we put the album on…”
Hendrix couldn’t believe what he was hearing. We’ve got to place ourselves in his shoes. He had never heard this stuff before. Mason most likely hadn’t either. Dylan’s new album was doing the business – and Hendrix had a brain wave.
“Jimi got it into his head that he wanted to do All Along the Watchtower,” said Mason. “I remember he said to me, ‘That’s the coolest song! I’m gonna go and record it! You want to come and do it with me?’ That’s basically how it started. He was just amazing.”
When they made it to the studio, Hendrix played six-string acoustic guitar, with Mason playing 12-string. It wouldn’t be their only collaboration. Mason would sing back-ups on Crosstown Traffic.
There was even talk that he would have been playing bass guitar for Hendrix but it never amounted to anything.
“It was going to happen, but the manager kind of put a stop to it for some reason,” said Mason. “Maybe it was an image thing. But I got to spend some cool time with him. I did some other stuff with him playing bass. I have no idea where those tracks went. I’ve never heard them.”
In the rearview mirror, we can all agree that All Along the Watchtower is one of the great tracks, assured of its place in the pop-cultural pantheon (it’s even in the Forrest Gump soundtrack), and, again, the ne plus ultra of cover versions.
Even Dylan, a Nobel Laureate of literature no less, admitted that Hendrix’s version “overwhelmed” him and informed future performances. But at the time Mason just thought as Hendrix thought, that, yes, it was a cool tune. He was too busy living to be cataloging these events.
I didn’t know who the hell he was, and when he started playing, I started thinking I should look into a different instrument
“I knew they were great tracks that created attention, but it’s hard to say what people would really think because at the time, I was living it,” he said in a 2014 Guitar World interview. “Looking back now, I was very fortunate to have ended up playing with so many great artists, even just for a moment.”
And Hendrix? Mason never forgot that first night when he witnessed the arrival of guitar’s most radical talent.
“I didn’t know who the hell he was, and when he started playing, I started thinking I should look into a different instrument,” he said, with a laugh. “He was truly unique.”
The late, great Dave Mason passed away earlier this week at the age of 79, prompting an outpouring of tributes from across the music world.
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