Oh, loyal blog readers, today you are in for a serious treat. I’m not going to lie here, I’m usually pretty prepared for my interviews \u00a0and know how to keep my composure. However, this was one of those exceptions where I found myself pretty speechless and struggling to find questions instead of praise.<\/p>\n It’s no secret that I’m a songwriting junkie. If there’s one topic I could talk about day in and day out, it’s the writing process. What inspires a songwriter? What do they focus on? How much editing do they do? What song forms are their favorites? The list goes on and on.<\/p>\n Ladies and gents, Barry Goldberg did not disappoint. From talking about his early days of listening to a who’s who of Hammond organ players to his years of writing with legend Gerry Goffin, this man is a treasure chest of music history. Did I mention that he’s also played with Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin? Goldberg also has writing credits for Rod Stewart, Gladys Knight, Steve Miller, Joe Cocker, Percy Sledge… you get the picture. Without further preface and fanfare, I’ll just invite you to read what well may be one of my favorite and most memorable interviews thus far.<\/p>\n CP:<\/em><\/strong> I know, last I heard, is you guys were working on a documentary and you had a lot of stuff going on.<\/em><\/p>\n BG:<\/strong> Yeah,\u00a0I\u2019m creating what I consider to be the definitive documentary of the Chicago blues scene from the \u201860s, you know, the evolution of blues into folk rock, and how we contributed to that and our relationship with the old blues masters. Being from Chicago, there\u2019s a lot of people that are playing at the club developed relationships as teenagers with the great legendary blues masters like Muddy Waters, Howlin\u2019 Wolf, Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, and being from Chicago, we would go out to the West Side and the South Side and sit in, and learn all we could about Chicago blues firsthand from these wonderful people. That\u2019s what the film is basically about. Then, it also has a section about the British Invasion and how they perceived the blues when they first heard the Chicago blues, and how they got the records\u2014 like the Rolling Stones, they got their name from Muddy Waters. You know, the whole deal.<\/em><\/p>\n CP:<\/strong> That\u2019s awesome. Is the documentary out already? I know there was talk of it coming out in the spring.<\/em><\/p>\n BG:<\/strong> It is just being tightened up now; it\u2019s 90 percent finished. It should be out in the fall.<\/em><\/p>\n CP:<\/strong> Excellent. Well, I\u2019m looking forward to that. There have been some really great music documentaries out lately, so that\u2019ll be exciting.<\/em><\/p>\n BG:<\/strong> Oh, this is really wonderful you know, it’s featuring Bob Dylan and Jack White, from The White Stripes, Buddy Guy, BB King, Mike Bloomfield, Paul Butterfield, all of our buddies, and all of the people that we have played with in the past.<\/em><\/p>\n CP:<\/strong> Tell me a little bit about how you got your start playing.<\/em><\/p>\n BG:<\/strong> My mother was a pianist. She was on the Yiddish stage, the Jewish stage, and she was a child actress, and she always played piano and accompanied herself. But she also played the boogie-woogie like, you know, like Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammons\u2014 all the great ones, she listened to. So I listened to them around the house, and she started showing me some licks, and we started playing duets together. You know, plus, she turned me out to all the boogie-woogie piano playing records from the\u00a0 \u201840s and the \u201850s, and that\u2019s pretty much how I got into it. As I evolved as a teenager, I started listening to the rock \u2018n\u2019 roll stuff like Jerry Lee Lewis and a lot of Fats Domino and Little Richard, all the greats. But what really got me, and I discovered it on my little radio- my transistor radio at the end of the dial- was a station called \u201cJam with Sam.\u201d At 12 o\u2019 clock midnight, he would go down to the basement and put on Little Walter, “Blue Lights” was his theme song, and he would find this magical, mystical cruise through the blues world. And that\u2019s what really got me.<\/em><\/p>\n CP:<\/strong> What attracted you to the Hammond organ?<\/em><\/p>\n BG:<\/strong> I just loved the instrument from when I first heard Ethel Smith. That\u2019s the first person I listened to. She had a song out called \u201cTico Tico\u201d, and there was something about the sound of the organ. After that, I listened to Lenny Dee. He had a record out called \u201cPlantation Boogie\u201d and I was infatuated with the sound of the organ. Then came Bill Doggett and Earl Bostick and Doc Bagby and all those funky guys. And that\u2019s what really turned me on to the B3, a unique keyboard instrument and before its time, you know?<\/em><\/p>\n Oh, and of course Jimmy Smith. Jimmy Smith was the great master who just blew my mind. No one could play like him.<\/em><\/p>\n CP:<\/strong> That’s a pretty solid background.<\/em><\/p>\n BG:<\/strong> Those were my influences.<\/em><\/p>\n CP:<\/strong>\u00a0On top of being such a great organ player, I\u00a0know you’re an incredible songwriter as well. You’ve written a bunch with Gerry Goffin\u2014 just some incredible hits. Can you tell me a little bit about your songwriting process and how you get started?<\/em><\/p>\n BG:<\/strong> Well, I always liked to write songs. I still love to write songs! In the beginning, the first professional song that I really wrote was a song called \u201cSittin\u2019 in Circles\u201d for The Electric Flag. Steve Miller also recorded that, so that was my first venture into songwriting and you know, I was sort of a musician first that liked to produce records too, and the songwriting was sort of a luxury thing for me and when I had time to do it, I never thought I was going to make any money out of it or anything. Around 1971, I was living in New York, and a manager friend of mine, Bennett Glotzer, who was Albert Grossman\u2019s partner \u2014 he used to represent Bob Dylan when I played with Dylan and The Electric Flag, and Janis Joplin- wanted me to meet someone and had Gerry Goffin in his office. You know, and my god, Gerry was like a legendary songwriter with Carole King and, I mean, these guys were professional songwriters. Goffin, and King, and Barry Mann and Cynthia Weile, and you know, Neil Sedaka, Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich- they were like the guys. I always saw their names on records, and Gerry wrote some of the greatest songs ever, ever written, like \u201cNatural Woman\u201d and \u201cWill You Still Love Me Tomorrow?\u201d and \u201cUp On The Roof.\u201d Gerry had just broken up with Carole and was still looking for a new writing partner.<\/em><\/p>\n And, uh, you know, I said, \u201cWell, why don\u2019t you come over for dinner?\u201d I invited him over, you know, made him dinner. We got to be really close friends, and for the first year, we were working really hard trying to write together. And Gerry would always want to write anti-war songs or protest songs. Screen Gems, who was a publisher at the time, never really took me serious as a songwriter. Gerry said, \u201cWell, you\u2019re just a musician.\u201d And I said, \u201cWell, yeah, I\u2019m a musician! I\u2019m proud to be a musician. I\u2019ll never be a songwriter.\u201d He said, \u201cOkay.\u201d and they said, in the beginning, \u201cIf we like the song, you\u2019ll come up and play it for us. If we like it, we\u2019ll give you $75.\u201d I said, \u201cOh my god, that would be good enough for a tuna casserole tonight, so that would be great.\u201d So I was playing, literally, for food, you know.<\/em><\/p>\n I said to Gerry, finally, \u201cI can\u2019t write these protest songs anymore. I need you to write a commercial lyric for me.\u201d So he looked at me, and he grabbed his pad, and he scribbled some lyrics on the pad. About five minutes later, he threw it at me and said, \u201cIs this what you want?\u201d I said, \u201cYeah, this is what I want.\u201d I was working on a song for Albert King, and Albert King was my hero. I wanted to write a song for him. So I wrote this sort of bluesy, rock kind of melody, and the lyrics were really phenomenal. I took it to Memphis, and Albert King\u2019s producer at Stax Records. We cut a demo of the song in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and then we went to Memphis and he says, \u201cNo, sorry, I don’t hear it for Albert.\u201d Six months later, the head at Voodoo Records call me up and said, \u201cYou’re gonna love this.\u00a0 Gladys Knight and the Pips just cut this song.\u201d And he played it for me over the phone, and I was just totally- I almost passed out! It was so good. It became the number one song. So the next week, you know, Screen Gems was the publisher who said I could never be a songwriter, sent me a case of\u00a0Dom Perignon, and all of a sudden, I was a songwriter! I felt that\u2019s how that began. Then Gerry and I wrote several other songs that were recorded by artists like The Neville Brothers, Rod Stewart, Joe Cocker. You know, it was just a wonderful thing, my collaboration with Gerry. He taught me so much about songwriting.<\/em><\/p>\n CP:<\/strong> That\u2019s such a cool story! (Laughs super nervously like any mega songwriting geek would).<\/em><\/p>\n BG:<\/strong> (Laughs) It is pretty cool.<\/em><\/p>\n CP:<\/strong> It really is! You’ll have to excuse me, because I\u2019m a little short on words right now. I\u2019m a big songwriting mega-nerd, so this is all very exciting to me right now.<\/em><\/p>\n BG:<\/strong> And, you know, I basically lucked out. I met this person that introduced me to Gerry Goffin, and it wouldn\u2019t have happened, you know, without a great lyricist.<\/em><\/p>\n CP:<\/strong> Absolutely.<\/em><\/p>\n BG:<\/strong>\u00a0I think that makes a difference in someone that puts out a song. You can write a great melody, but they are always looking for the profile lyric for the artist. We were lucky too with the next song that became a top ten song for Rod Stewart, \u201cIt\u2019s Not The Spotlight.\u201d I\u2019m actually still writing with Gerry, so that\u2019s a great thing.<\/em><\/p>\n CP:<\/strong> That\u2019s a great partnership! Wow. When you\u2019re writing a song, is there anything in particular that you\u2019re really listening for to know that, you know that this is the one?<\/em><\/p>\n BG:<\/strong> Well, like I said, it\u2019s the lyrics really. If I have a great lyric, you know, that\u2019s the difference right there. I’ll listen to people now like Adele and try to get into a groove for the artist and the style, and the feeling. But you never know now what anybody is looking for. It\u2019s so across the board now. You know, with the hip hop stuff, and there\u2019s very little market right now for songwriting. But that\u2019s what I do. I listen to records, and people and songs that turn me on. You know, I was listening to The Stones a few years ago, and I wrote a song called, \u201cAudience For My Pain\u201d with Gerry, and the melody is just sort of real Stones-y, and I got into their vibe. You know, you just get into it because you love it so much. Rod Stewart, when I wrote that song, I listened to \u201cMaggie May\u201d. I listened to \u201cReason to Believe\u201d. \u00a0I love their music so much, you know, it just transfers into my head, and I come out with their vibe and their melody. Instead The Neville Brothers cut the song, and Sam and Dave, and a few others cut the song, but I came really close to getting a Stones record out of that song.<\/em><\/p>\n CP:<\/strong> Wow. I know you just touched on this a little, but you\u2019ve seen this music business go through so many changes and evolve so much. Have you really had to change the way you conduct business, especially over the last 15 years or so with all the digital downloads, streaming, changing labels, and all that kind of stuff? Have you really had to make a change?<\/em><\/p>\n BG:<\/strong> Absolutely. You know, it was sort of a natural change too, because I did a lot of TV and film work to subsidize myself. I was pretty good at it, and the songwriting thing was dissipating a little bit, you know. There was becoming less and less of a market for a song. I just was sitting in with some people and playing, and said, \u201cOh my god.\u201d I just forgot the reason I started in music. \u00a0I started as a musician, and the response you get and the feeling you get when you\u2019re playing in front of people, and you\u2019re playing your act, you\u2019re playing your instrument with other people who you like playing with, and the thrill of it all, that’s why I started, you know? That\u2019s what makes it worthwhile. Sure, it\u2019s good to make money and to have good pay, but that\u2019s not what it\u2019s about. It\u2019s about that feeling, you know?<\/em><\/p>\n CP:<\/strong> Absolutely.<\/em><\/p>\n BG:<\/strong> So I started playing again, and you know, what do you do? I went back to the blues. That\u2019s where I started. And that\u2019s still my favorite kind of music. That\u2019s the music that\u2019s straight from my heart, that I feel more than any other. I love rock \u2018n\u2019 roll, but nothing does it for me like the blues. You know, that\u2019s the direct emotion that I get, and I really get off playing. \u00a0I played with my buddies, Mike Bloomfield, Paul Butterfield, and all the great blues guys just give me such thrills, like Otis Rush when he shakes the string, or B.B. King. They all have their distinctive playing.<\/em><\/p>\n So I just thought why don\u2019t we all get together again- the guys that survived, the guys that I started out with like Nick Gravenites, Corky Siegel, Sam Lay from the Butterfield Band, and start playing again together. Charlie Musselwhite would come in and out of the scene and play some gigs with us, and that\u2019s what\u2019s been getting me off in the last 10 years\u2014 playing again, and how much fun I\u2019m having playing with the guys I started out with.<\/em><\/p>\n Looking over at them and saying, \u201cHey man, how ya\u2019 doin\u2019 today, Nick? We\u2019re gonna do \u2018Born in Chicago\u2019 tonight,\u201d the song that got him in the Chicago Hall of Fame that Butterfield made famous, and you know, we\u2019re going to do “Sloppy Drunk” tonight, the Jimmy Rogers song. I mean, Nick Gravenites, to me, is a pure, classic blues artist. He\u2019s one of the greatest singers of all time, and Dick and I were together with The Electric Flag \u00a0with Buddy Miles, and every time we play together, you know, we just look over at one another and you know, there\u2019s a feeling of love for the music. Getting each other off, you know, and that\u2019s what this band does.<\/em><\/p>\n CP:<\/strong> What are you guys most looking forward to about coming out to San Diego and playing for us at Anthology next week?<\/em><\/p>\n BG:<\/strong> Well, we\u2019re just looking to get everybody off! You know, and for us to get off, and having that response again! Bringing the people a little bit about the Chicago blues feeling, just making everybody happy, and we\u2019re really looking forward to it, to playing together and having a good time with the blues.<\/em><\/p>\n Special thanks to Barry for his time, delightful sense of humor, and most of all, \u00a0for sharing his experiences over the years. It truly was a delight, and I hope you’ll all join us on Friday night to watch the incredible Chicago Blues Reunion show! WHAT: <\/em>Chicago Blues Reunion<\/strong><\/em> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An Interview with Barry Goldberg of the Chicago Blues Reunion By Casey Pukl Oh, loyal blog readers, today you are in for a serious treat. I’m not going to lie here, I’m usually pretty prepared for my interviews \u00a0and know how to keep my composure. However, this was one of those exceptions where I found […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1442],"tags":[11512],"class_list":["post-6689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artists","tag-artist-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6689"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32892,"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6689\/revisions\/32892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/BarryGoldberg.jpg\" "\\"Chicago")
<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n
\nChicago Blues Reunion on Spotify<\/a><\/p>\n
\nWHEN: <\/span>Friday, June 29, 7:30pm <\/strong><\/em>
\nTICKETS: $18-$39 <\/span>Buy Tickets<\/a><\/em>
\nMORE INFO: <\/span>Artist Profile<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n