Interview with Barry Goldberg
Patricia Jungwirth
hadn't read it before and thought some might be interested.
Bloomfield Notes - Number 6 (Fall 1996)
Interview with Barry Goldberg
[excerpt]
Bn: You backed up Bob Dylan when he played at The Newport Folk Festival in
1965.
BG: I got to play with Bob quite by accident. I had come out to
play with Butterfield, because Michael and Paul had invited me to come and
play with the band. I was their first keyboard player. I would sit in with
them all the time.
When I got to Newport the producer, Paul Rothchild, was really
obstinate and rude, and said, "Absolutely no organ." He didn't want that
element, he just wanted the five pieces. Paul and Michael tried to talk to
him but he was just really against it.
So I had nowhere to go. I was stuck there, a long way from
Chicago. One night we were just sitting around and Bob showed up and said,
"The keyboard player isn't here yet," and Michael said, "There's a great
keyboard player here in Barry," and Bob said, "You want to come to the
sound check?" and I said, "Sure," and that's how I got to do it, and it
worked out great. And then we went on that night. Michael just went nuts,
he just rammed it right down their throats. He loved those kind of things.
Bn: What did you think about Dylan's decision to go electric at
the festival?
BG: I thought it was an amazingly brave and bold move. Before he
played, there were fistfights between Alan Lomax and Albert Grossman, which
was a really ugly scene. Albert really believed in this -- that we were
gonna plug in no matter what. The time had come. I don't know if he was a
visionary, but this was it. Butterfield and Dylan plugging in. And the old
folk crowd, the old guard, was standing fast. They felt so threatened, that
a new thing was happening -- out with the old and in with the new.
But it was more about a new frontier of music called folk-rock.
And electric blues was happening. And so many people got turned on by it.
But unfortunately the majority of the crowd there were die-hard folkies,
who didn't want to accept this no matter what. And they wanted to make
their presence known and make a statement.
So a lot of people booed, but I remember a lot of people
cheering, too. It was probably 60 percent booing and 40 percent cheering. I
don't remember everybody booing, I just remember Michael counting it off
and saying, "Let's go!" and it was like POW!! -- we went into this
whirlwind. Mike turned his amp up so loud, he turned it up to nine, just to
infuriate people even more. Bob was like this warrior. We were all on this
mission.
Bn: Full speed ahead.
BG: Exactly, and that's it. Don't look back, actually.
Bn: You still have a good friendship with Dylan.
BG: A very good friendship. I used him on a soundtrack. We did a
version of "People Get Ready," for a movie called Flashback, with Dennis
Hopper and Kiefer Sutherland. Bob sang that and I produced it. So we still
talk a lot.
Bn: It seems like Dylan was quite an admirer of Mike.
BG: Oh God, yes. He thought he was the greatest guitar player of
all.
Lowg...@ao1.com
Worth keeping just for the "booing percentage estimate"
don freeman
> Thanks, TJ.
> Worth keeping just for the "booing percentage estimate"
>
I agree, a great interview. Now I must queue up my Two Jews Blues for
this morning's listening.
tedalvy@aoldotcom
interviews and other info he gathered in an excellent oral history book
titled Michael Bloomfield: If You Love These Blues by Jan Mark Wolkin,
Bill Keenom (Carlos Santana - Foreword); Hardcover; 272 pages; Backbeat
Books (October 30, 2000); [BONUS CD included with book]
frinjdwelr
What puzzles me about this interview is how it completely ignores Barry's
album that Bob "produced" and sang backup on.
"Patricia Jungwirth" <tric...@aardvark.net.au> wrote in message
news:3.0.32.20060227...@aardvark.net.au...
Will Dockery
Willie
Lots of mid-60's Bob influence (I guess it was recorded/released in 1974).
Wikipedia tells us that "Goldberg is a nephew of Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg."