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The Band: Back To The Land

Andy Gill, MOJO, November 2000

Nestling beneath the forest-clad slopes of Overlook Mountain, a couple of hours drive north of New York City, the town of Woodstock has a sort of ossified charm akin to the picture-postcard quaintness of Clint Eastwood's West Coast manor, Carmel. Driving past the cafes and shops along the Tinker Street main drag, it looks like just the place to go after some mood-altering crystals or "'erbal" tea, but there doesn't seem to be much other local industry to hold the community together. Once a lumber town, its present status was established around the turn of the century, when Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead and Emily Byrd founded their artists colony Byrdcliffe there; in the late '60's it became the preferred refuge for over-tired rock stars when Bob Dylan followed his manager Albert Grossman up there, settling into one of the old Byrdcliffe houses along Camelot Road.

Total word count of piece: 4381

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