Blues rock musician Barry Goldberg has sadly passed away aged 83 in hospice care. The keyboardist fought a 10-year battle with non-Hodgkin lymphoma – a type of cancer that develops in the lymphatic system.
A spokesman confirmed to Variety that he was surrounded by his wife of 53 years, Gail Goldberg, and his son Aram when he passed away.
The musician initially teamed up with Bob Dylan in 1974 to produce his self-titled ‘Barry Goldberg’ album, alongside Jerry Wexler, the Express reports. Goldberg returned the favour by producing Dylan’s version of Curtis Mayfield’s ‘People Get Ready’, which was then featured on the soundtrack of a film called Flashback.
Also in his extensive career, Goldberg was the founding member of the 1960s group the Electric Flag, which included Mike Bloomfield, Buddy Miles and Harvey Brooks. The group went on to provide the soundtrack from the Peter Fonda cult film ‘The Trip’, along with releasing the 1968 album – ‘A Long Time Comin’.
Tributes for the late musician have poured in across social media platforms, with one X user writing: “Barry Goldberg was a great pianist, a brilliant songwriter and a lifetime friend. We played together in Chicago in 1965 as the Goldberg-Miller Blues Band and he was an important part of the blues revival in Chicago in the mid ’60s. R.I.P Barry, yours was a great musical journey.”
Another tweeted: “RIP Barry Goldberg, the blues rock legend whose iconic career spanned decades. From Paul Butterfield to Bob Dylan to The Electric Flag, and hits for Gladys Knight & Rod Stewart, his music crossed generations.” While a third simply wrote: “Godspeed, Barry Goldberg.”
Goldberg was a well known part of the American music scene in the 60s as a member of The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, which famously supported Dylan at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, where the folk legend debuted his new electric sound.
The legendary performance – which was controversial at the time – has been recreated in the 2024 biopic of Dylan’s life, ‘A Complete Unknown’. Goldberg was portrayed by actor Justin Levine in the scene where Dylan is booed at for swapping his acoustic guitar for an electric one and playing alongside an electric band.
This famous performance was also the first time Dylan played ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ live, and it is now considered one of the greatest songs of all time.
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