As I Went Out One Morning: A Weekend Trip to Dylan Country

This past weekend, my family and I headed up yonder to Woodstock, NY to visit friends. We had a great time, enjoying the air, trees, animals and cuisine and mingling with the local citizens.

While one might think the place would be overrun with hippies and Deadheads, the vibe is actually much more of the aging-folkie/creative-professional variety. Not surprisingly, the spirit of our hero Bob Dylan looms large.

Dylan, as you may or may not know, lived in Woodstock for many years; it's been a haven for artists and writers for well over 100 years.

In 1964, Dylan's manager Albert Grossman, set Bob up in an apartment above the Cafe Espresso so he could concentrate on his monumental songwriting gifts (and play a little chess) away from the distractions of New York City life. This clip from a film called Woodstock Revisited gives a nice sense of what Dylan's life was like way back when:


After going electric in 1965, releasing his genius trilogy (Bringing it All Back Home/Highway 61/Blonde on Blonde) and red-lining himself on his epic tour with the Band, Dylan bought a house in the Byrdcliffe section of town and spent a few years out of the spotlight to raise a family.

In 1967, Bob may or may not have had a motocycle accident on Route 212. Was it real, or was it an excuse to get out of his lethal touring schedule? Only Bob knows for sure. But having seen the road firsthand, it's certainly plausible.


Great artists like the Zim-master have a way of absorbing their surroundings into their art. While in Woodstock, Dylan cast his urban-electric-beatnik-blues aside and whipped up the Americana genre with his buddies in The Band on The Basement Tapes. His subsequent albums John Wesley Harding, Nashville Skyline and New Morning are equally evocative of the Woodstock region.

Woodstock-era Bob is my favorite Dylan music, and all of these albums are filled with a calmness, serenity, wisdom, warmth and brilliance that make them truly timeless.


On Saturday night, we went to a fundraiser for the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild communtity. One of the attendees was Happy Traum, who played with Bob on the wonderful series of covers featured on side 4 of his 1971 Greatest Hits Volume II record.


While I didn't get a chance to shake the man's hand, it was a pleasure just to be under the same tent. Here's Happy doing the Nashville Skyline coda "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here with You."