I downloaded off the internet the chord progression for All Along the Watchtower, it's basically Am, G, F, G, Am, etc. Nothing fancy.

But when Uli plays it (see the DVD "Legends Of Rock, Uli Jon Roth, Jack Bruce, and UFO Live at Castle Donington") his chord progression doesn't look quite that simple, nor quite that repetitive.

My question is, is he simply using different inversions of these chords, or is he substituting other chords just to make things more interesting?

Thanks for any help.

Scott

He's probably just adopting different finger positions in order to facilitate the embelishments that Hendrix coloured most of his songs with.

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Uli is a huge Hendrix fan and like John said he's probably adding those little flourishes. I've not seen the footage but I guess there are other guitarists backing him? They're probably doing the boring stuff whilst he gets to have fun

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Yeah, Hendrix pretty much improvised all of his embelishments and most of his solos. They followed a theme but he rarely played the same thing twice.

If Roth copied Hendrix's playing method then he will also use the thumb on his fretting hand to fret 6th string root notes of barre chords. This can have the effect of making him look like he's adopting a different fretting shape depending on what angle you view it from.

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I just happened to find this video online of Uli playing All Along The Watchtower.

the URL address is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0-4Fr1Br2c

Now that you mention it his thumb is a mile long, and looks like it's fretting the 6th string which I hadn't noticed. Any further comments on what he is doing here is appreciated.

Scott

It just frees up his index finger a lot more than normal barring does. Jimi utilised this technique pretty much every time he barred a root 6 chord.

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