Recognized blues-rock musician Barry Goldbergwho was a part of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band when it accompanied Bob Dylan on his legendary electric performance on the otherwise acoustic Newport Folk Festival in 1965, died on January twenty second.

He was 83.

Goldberg, who also performed/recorded with Steve Miller, Muddy Waters, Leonard Cohen and Stephen Stills and lots of other famous musicians “died in hospice care after a decade-long battle with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma,” in response to publicist Bob Merlis. “Gail Goldberg, his wife of 53 years, and son Aram were at that bedside.”

The great blues-rock keyboardist, who was also a bandleader, songwriter and producer, was born on Christmas Day 1942 and grew up in Chicago, where he nurtured his love of music and quickly rose through the ranks of the Windy City's keyboardists. As the story goes, Goldberg was still a young person when he shared the stage with Chicago blues legends like Muddy Waters, Otis Rush and Howlin' Wolf.

Goldberg was also still in highschool when he met and befriended top guitarist Mike Bloomfield, and the 2 aspiring artists soon made a reputation for themselves within the Chicago blues scene. They eventually joined the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, which might help shock the folks music world – and far of the remaining of the world – once they supported Bob Dylan as he went electric on the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.

Now widely considered some of the famous/infamous performances within the history of popular music, this electrifying moment is featured prominently within the Oscar-nominated Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown.

Goldberg co-produced albums/songs for Percy Sledge, Charlie Musselwhite, James Cotton, the Textones and even Dylan himself. An completed songwriter, Goldberg wrote songs that were later recorded by Rod Stewart, Gladys Knight, Joe Cocker, Steve Miller, Bobby ” Blue” Bland, Gram Parsons, BJ Thomas and others were recorded.

Despite his many different roles in the music business over the decades, Goldberg remained first and foremost a Chicago bluesman. Therefore, he was the ideal choice to lead the Chicago Blues Reunion, a group that over the years has also included Sam Lay, Nick Gravenites, Harvey Mandel, Corky Siegel, Tracy Nelson, Charlie Musselwhite, Jimmy Vivino, Marcy Levy and others Artists mattered.

In lieu of flowers, Goldberg's family requests that donations be made to The Bear League in the celebrated musician's name savebears.org.

Originally published: January 22, 2025 at 1:17 pm PST

The Bob Dylan BiopicAn entire unknownStarring Timothée Chalamet, “” focuses on Dylan's transition from idiosyncratic folk singer to internationally renowned singer-songwriter within the early Nineteen Sixties.

As a music historianI even have at all times particularly respected one decision of Dylan's – one which ushered within the young artist's most turbulent and significant creative period.

Sixty years ago, on Halloween night 1964, a 23-year-old Dylan walked onto the stage of the New York Philharmonic. He had turn into a star within the area of interest genre revivalist folk music. But by 1964, Dylan was constructing a much larger fan base by performing and recording his own songs.

Dylan presented a solo set, mixing previously recorded material with some latest songs. Representatives from his label, Columbia Records, were readily available to record the concert, with the intention of releasing the live show as his fifth official album.

It would have been a logical successor to Dylan's 4 other Columbia albums. With the exception of 1 title “Corrina, Corrina“These albums taken together contained exclusively solo acoustic performances.

But in late 1964, Columbia stopped recording the Philharmonic Hall concert. Dylan had decided he desired to make a unique type of music.

From Minnesota to Manhattan

Two and a half years earlier, Dylan, then just 20 years old, gained widespread recognition within the New York folk music community. At the time, the revival of people music took place in cities across the country, but Manhattan's Greenwich Village was the beating heart of the movement.

Mix with and Be inspired by other folk musiciansDylan, who had recently moved to Manhattan from Minnesota, On April 11, 1961, he secured his first appearance at Gerde's Folk City. Dylan performed at various other music clubs in Greenwich Village, playing folk songs, ballads and blues. He aspired to turn into an artist in his own right, like his hero Woody Guthrie, who could use vocals, guitar and harmonica to hold on the musical legacy of “the old, strange America“,” a saying coined by critic Greil Marcus to explain Dylan's early repertoire, which consisted of fabric he learned from songbooks, records, and prewar musicians.

While Dylan's versions of older songs were undeniably charming, he later admitted that a few of his colleagues within the early Nineteen Sixties folk music scene – notably Mike Seeger – were higher at reproducing traditional instrumental and vocal styles.

However, Dylan realized that he had an unrivaled ability to put in writing and perform latest songs.

In October 1961, veteran talent scout John Hammond signed Dylan to record for Columbia. His eponymous debutreleased in March 1962, contained interpretations of traditional ballads and blues with only two original compositions. This album sold only 5,000 copies, leading some Columbia officials to explain the Dylan contract as “Hammond's Folly.”

Full speed ahead

The formula of its predecessor, Dylan's 1963 follow-up album, was reversed: “Bob Dylan on the loose“, offered 11 Dylan originals and just two traditional songs. The powerful collection combined songs about relationships with original protest songs, including his breakthrough “Blowing within the wind.”

“The times wherein they alter“, his third release, presented exclusively Dylan's own compositions.

Dylan's creative work continued. As he stated in “Uneasy farewell“, the closing track of “The Times They Are A-Changin'”, “My feet at the moment are fast / and point away from the past.”

Dylan's fourth Columbia album, Another Side of Bob Dylan, was released just six months after The Times and featured solo acoustic recordings of original songs that were lyrically adventurous and fewer focused on current events. As suggested in his song: “My backs“He now rejected the concept that he could – or should – speak for his generation.

Bringing all the things together

By the top of 1964, Dylan longed to finally break free from the constraints of the people genre – and from the concept of ​​a “genre” on the whole. He desired to subvert audience expectations and rebel against forces within the music industry that desired to pigeonhole him and his work.

The Philharmonic Hall concert went easily, but Dylan refused to permit Columbia to show it into an album. The recording wouldn't be officially released for an additional 4 a long time.

Instead, Dylan entered Columbia's Studio A in January 1965 to record his fifth album, Bringing It All Back Home. But this time he embraced the electrical rock sound that had energized America within the wake of Beatlemania. This album featured songs with stream-of-consciousness lyrics and surreal imagery, and featured Dylan backing a rock band on many songs.

“Bring everything home“, released in March 1965, set the tone for Dylan's next two albums: “Highway 61 Revisited” in August 1965 and “Blonde and Blonde” in June 1966. Critics and fans have long considered these last three albums to be vibrant what the singer-songwriter himself called “that thin, that wild mercury sound” – considered one among the best albums of the rock era.

On July 25, 1965, on the Newport Folk Festival, Dylan invited members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band on stage to accompany three songs. Because genre expectations for folks music right now included acoustic instrumentation, audiences were unprepared for Dylan's loud performances. Some critics considered the set unusable an act of heresyan affront to the decency of people music. The next yr Dylan launched into a tour of Britain and an audience member at Manchester station shamefully insulted him for abandoning folk music, shouting: “Judas!”

But the creative risks Dylan took during this time inspired countless other musicians: Rock acts just like the Beatles, the Animals and the Byrds; Pop acts like Stevie Wonder, Johnny Rivers and Sonny and Cher; and country singer like Johnny Cash.

In recognition of the bar that Dylan's songwriting has setCash, in his liner notes On Dylan's 1969 album Nashville Skyline, he wrote: “Here-in is a damn good poet.”

Inspired by Dylan's example, many musicians experimented with their very own sound and elegance, while artists of assorted genres paid homage to Dylan by performing and recording his songs.

In 2016, Dylan received the Nobel Prize for Literature “for creating new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.” His early engagement with this tradition could be heard on his first 4 Columbia albums – records that laid the muse for Dylan's album August profession.

In 1964, Dylan was the talk of Greenwich Village.

But now he’s the star of the world because he never rested on his laurels.

Red Sox

Add one other starting pitcher to the long list of weapons the Red Sox are said to be taken with acquiring this offseason.

According to MLB Network's Jon Morosi, right-hander Dylan Cease is reportedly on Boston's radar. Morosi noted that the Red Sox could particularly look to pursue the 28-year-old (Cease turns 29 later this month) in the event that they are unable to sign fellow starter Corbin Burnes in free agency.

You already missed Max Fried, who Morosi featured alongside Burnes in his post

The Red Sox are among the many teams taken with Dylan Cease. He is an option for them on the trade market if Burnes and Fried sign elsewhere. @MLBNetwork

— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) December 10, 2024

Cease began 33 games (tied for the MLB lead) for the San Diego Padres in 2024 and had a 3.47 ERA during that span. He finished the season with a 14-11 record, 224 strikeouts and a career-high 1.07 WHIP – and finished fourth in American League Cy Young Award voting.

Additionally, Cease threw 189 ⅓ innings – six more innings than Boston's top starter in that category (Cutter Crawford, 183 ⅔). That number was enough for probably the most innings pitched in his six-year MLB profession.

Cease's impressive season with the Padres began after a trade from the Chicago White Sox in March of this yr, just before the beginning of the regular season. Despite playing for a minor White Sox team, Cease made a reputation for himself as considered one of the league's best starters. This helped him turn into a competitor in San Diego.

Why would the Padres put an arm like Cease in the marketplace? The club is He is reportedly attempting to cut payroll as they hope to remain under the league's luxury tax.

With one yr of team control remaining, Cease is in for an enormous payday soon. He is scheduled to turn into a free agent after 2025.

By then, the Red Sox would should trade players for a yr of receiver talent. Boston actually has the potential in each the most important and minor leagues to finish a deal for Cease or any player.

But is it value giving up several young players and/or MLB players for only one freeze season? If Boston fails to sign Burnes, considered one of the highest starters they reportedly had all winter, the organization may haven’t any other alternative. That is, if it actually wants to enhance its rotation and compete for the AL East.

Chief Baseball Officer Craig Breslow said Throughout the offseason, the team might want to add starting pitching, whether via free agency or the trade market. The free agent class is getting thinner and the opposite teams around them are recuperating every single day. The Red Sox may finally be forced to sell members of their farm system in the event that they want to satisfy their many guarantees to fans this winter.