Angel - Jimi Hendrix
In 1963 Arthur Lee and lead guitarist Johnny Echols from Love were the house band for the California Club in LA along with the 21 year old Jimi Hendrix and Billy Preston. Apart from Hendrix, the rest of the band were all in their teens; extraordinarily all four went onto all sorts of greatness, individually and collectively, from playing with the Beatles, Little Richard, the Isley Brothers, Sam Cooke amongst others to being hailed as the greatest guitarist ever, or, as in the case of Love, voted at least once as having recorded the best album of all time.
One of the most annoying things about Rod Stewart is his habit of covering other people's songs that aren't well enough known to his increasingly middle of the road listening public and not doing them as well as the original. It wouldn't be so bad if his versions were as good as, or even nearly as good, but they seldom are. It could be said that he's doing the likes of Tom Waits or the Sutherland Brothers a favour by drawing the public's attention to them, but I don't believe that his public is that adventurous.
Here is an early example, from Hendrix's posthumous album "The Cry of Love", with the great man showing his gospel roots in his soulful vocal and backing it up with some bluesy guitar, that's so cool and blue it's like a glass of soothing icy water held up against a summer sky, or indeed like moonlight on a shimmering ocean.
"Angel came down from heaven yesterday She stayed with me just long enough to rescue me And she told me a story yesterday About the sweet love between the moon and the deep blue sea And then she spread her wings high over me She said she's gonna come back tomorrow."
How could anyone mess with that?