Hidden down a one-lane dirt road in West Saugerties, NY, is a split-level, pink-shingled house that has the most famous basement in Rock-n-Roll. This is the house where Bob Dylan lived in 1967,with members of The Band. Dylan and The Band recorded The Basement Tapes in the basement on a 2-track recorder back in 1967 but the album wasn't released until 1975 as a double album. The Band, (Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson, and Levon Helm) would eventually live there and rent out the house.The Band recorded the legendary Music From Big Pink album, one of my all-time favorite albums, there in 1968, along with the follow-up The Band (the "brown" album) in1969. Bob Dylan also recorded his John Wesley Harding album there. Also other well established artists such as Eric Clapton and George Harrison would frequent Big Pink around this time, and even write and rehearse songs there. The house looks much the same as it did on the back of the Music From Big Pink album cover more than 40 years ago. As I stood there alone in the quiet of a late afternoon, I could swear I heard Dylan and the boys down there in the basement.
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