Blues isn't always built in a straight line. Someone who finds this feeling coming into their life might not even know what it is. Rather, the blues can be a feeling that overtakes the spirit like a near-religious belief, one that offers strength and hope beyond all odds. As a sound it knows no bounds. There aren't any markings on the music that define where it came from or where it can go. Rather, it's a process that each person makes for themself. No two people have the same blues. Instead, each individual has their own. That's because the feeling begins in secret, and moves through the heart into the world. What makes the blues so stunningly powerful is that it cannot be controlled. It comes often in the night, and either stays through the day or disappears like it arrived: without warning or wonder. The blues just is.

Barry Goldberg's blues have always been a mystery, even to him. Goldberg grew up in a substantial family in Chicago. His uncle, Arthur Goldberg, was an U.S. Supreme Court justice. That's serious credentials. But for the young Goldberg, he was drawn off the normal route of adulthood. Instead, he heard something in the soul of players who performed in the city's blues clubs on the South Side and West Side. It was the kind of sound that cannot be debated. It either invades all the way into their deepest depths or it doesn't get in at all. This is not the sound of a part-time affair. Rather, it is one that rushes in on a hell-bent crusade of salvation. Unlike what is commonly believed, the blues is actually there to wrap itself around the pain of living in a way that will exorcise the hurt and move it in the direction of happiness. That's why those who embrace the blues with such alacrity are the ones who have received the secret. The blues is here to help.

It didn't take long for a young Goldberg to figure this out. By high school he had been moved into a special place for students with behavior deviations from the norm, and it was there that he met future blues guitar king Michael Bloomfield. It is like the two were a pair that meant to be joined at the soul. But that's usually the way with those who fall hard for the blues that young. Detecting a willing running buddy in the pursuit of the music is part of the package, and it often doesn't take long to figure out who is up for the task. Soon enough bonds are made and explorations into blues territory becomes the most important pursuit of the day. That's how Barry Goldbeerg and Michael Bloomfield began their real-life devotion to locate who was playing the music that became a clearly soul-saving sound which could not be done without. The blues had bit them, and that was that.

Luckily Barry Goldberg had equal musical skills to Bloomfield, and his were on the piano. Together they formed a one-two knockout punch of teenagers who had an advanced level of playing the music they had begun to call their own. Their first forays into the blues clubs in Chicago became an exciting event, as they saw at their very prime artists like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Otis Rush, Little Walter, Otis Spann and so many more. Every weekend was a mind-twisting head-on with a musical tilt-a-whirl that one day would change the direction of music, taking it head-on into a worldwide explosion of auditory adventure. This sound wasn't just for entertainment. It was actually to rearrange the molecules of young listeners in a way that helped them invent their own expression of expanded consciousness. This was a bridge to the promised land, and there would be no turning back. Once the youngsters got to team up with the more-experienced blues crew in Chicago, spontaneous combustion was at hand. Paul Butterfield, Charlie Musselwhite, Elvin Bishop and others began to rise in the ranks where they could hold their own onstage with the forefathers, and everyone got to move up a notch.

When Barry Goldberg played his first recording session, it was a good omen. In the studio with Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels, the aggregation married "Devil With the Blue Dress" with "Good Golly Miss Molly" for a Top 10 American hit. Big time had hit, and Goldberg didn't take long before forming a band with relative Chicago newcomer Steve Miller called, what else, the Goldberg-Miller Blues Band. Its release right around the debut Paul Butterfield Blues Band album was like announcing a small brigade of young American bluesters were going for it. There was a feeling of gravitational excitement in American music, like the musicians were taking on all the English acts who had been grabbing the spotlight for a few years. That would stop now. As for Goldberg himself, he was absolutely in the right place at the right time on July 25, 1965 when Bob Dylan performed a partially-electric set at the Newport Folk Festival and Goldberg put his hand, feet and Hammond organ wheels permanently in cosmic cement when the band "went electric." As it was immortalized in front of a supposedly booing crowd when they let their rock & roll fly performing what was at first called folk-rock before every eventually realized music is just music and there's no need to twist and shout about its name. Barry Goldberg, in so many ways, had really arrived in that electric Army.

Soon after Newport, the wave of the more experimental San Francisco psychedelic outfits dove in to prove there was no doubt the playing field was being rearranged, and the musical sides were being equaled out. Barry Goldberg knew a major move for himself needed to be made, so he partnered back up with his Chicago teammate Michael Bloomfield for a blast at the top with The Electric Flag. It didn't hurt that Bob Dylan's positively astute manager Albert Grossman was dealing the playing cards, and the band's label was also Bob Dylan's corporate home. It looked like the next group's future was bright, the whole band could keep their shades on.

So-called super groups were all the rage, and it really did feel like the Flag were one, more aimed at the soul side of American rock music than other more outre outfits. But no matter what they were being defined as it, didn't take long to know the big guns had come to town. Still, the Electric Flag needed a kingpin drummer. Their kind of music was built on the solidity of the beat, and it would take a mountain of a player to fill the bill. The night that Goldberg and Bloomfield had journeyed to Brooklyn to see Wilson Pickett, they found just what they were looking for. Drummer Buddy Miles was just 19-years-old then, but he had the power of an earth-mover crossed with the syncopation of a swingster. The only problem was he worked for a madman of a bandleader, the Wicked Pickett, who let it be known far and wide that all hands were to be kept off his beatkeeper. Which of course, did not stop the Chicago Two. After the show at the Paramount was over, they invited the young Miles back to their hotel room and conveniently stopped at a grocery store for the purchase of an ample supply of Oreo cookies. Once in the room, they presented the job offer of drummer for the soon-to-be-named The Electric Flag, but it was slow going. It was known that Pickett carried a pistol and did not put up with any intrusion into his group's place of employment. But still the Windy City musicians pushed forward, plying Miles with Oreos and painting a picture of a luscious life in the Bay Area--where this Flag would be planted--as a new Valhalla like America had never seen. By the end of the night, Goldberg and Bloomfield had their dream drummer and Buddy Miles was ready for sleep. For the next two years no one was quite sure if Miles would live through his defection, or if Goldberg and Bloomfield would make it through their own extreme transgression of musician-poaching from Wilson Pickett. Luckily everything worked out, for awhile at least, except the Electric Flag slid down the slippery-slope of drug addiction that cut their abilities off at the pass and never allowed them to build into what at first seemed like an absolutely unlimited future.

Like all great musicians, there is almost always a push ahead. It's where the action is, and in 1968 spearheaded by keyboardist Al Kooper, guitarists Stephen Stills and Michael Bloomfield hit the long ball with Kooper on SUPER SESSION. It's not accidental that Goldberg was there too on piano, playing parts that only he could. One of the most successful instrumental rock albums ever, it is still seen as a game-changer in how the audience was shown the ways a vocal-free set could succeed.

By 1969 Barry Goldberg was back standing on his own two feet, having folded up the Flag as he began a solo career. It was the rage by then, and the Chicago whiz for sure had the resume. Several albums were released, all with strong fanfare but none really had the sound to capture a new audience. Blues-tinged collections seemed to be now given a tepid shoulder as arena rock and other massive movements arrived. But Barry Goldberg has always been a musician first, and that wasn't going to change. In 1972 he took a giant step when Bob Dylan and Atlantic Records co-chief Jerry Wexler stepped in to produce a Barry Goldberg solo record for Atco Records. That's clout, and the press machine was turned up to stun. While the album got a good response, it didn't go much beyond that. In some ways, having that kind of heavy artillery in the studio but without winning the sales war was hard on the Chicagoan's career momentum, and the solo idea was pushed aside as it looked like time for another semi-supergroup: KGB. Which stood for (Ray) Kennedy, (Barry) Goldgerg and (Michael) Bloomfield, along with Rick Grech and Carmine Appice. This one deflated quicker than all the others combined, as Bloomfield admitted he was only in it for the money and the other members weren't quite sure what to do. They all went to their separate corners and returned to playing music, some more successfully than others, but the way KGB came and went so fast, the good news was that few took much notice when they were around and when they left.

Like all great musicians, new experiences arrive sometimes out of the blue, as the formation of the band The Rides did in 2009. With Goldberg, Stephen Stills and Kenny Wayne Shepherd joining together to come down hard on their blues roots, in a way that showed their immense abilities and soulful proclivities, The Rides were a band that Goldberg really got to shine with. His Hammond organ at peak expression, it felt like he had finally found a band that seemed like family. When each member took on other commitments, it was clear The Rides weren't finished. In all ways, it seemed like the ride was just beginning and might someday be back for a race around the track.

Barry Goldberg has returned now to what he always has done: play and produce music and write songs for others. For all the years after 1975 that was his North Star, and he did it with huge success and wondrous soulfulness. There were mega-hit songs and just as many session successes. As he still is now Barry Goldberg really is in so many ways in a class by himself, ready to assist on either side of the recording studio glass, and always do so with deep soul and sharp instincts. He's been avidly involved in dozens of saluted recordings, and moves through life with a quiet groove that only those who have been to the top possess. Recently at his Blues Summit show at the Write-Off Room in Studio City, California, the evening felt like a family reunion, and a look at a man who has done it all in the music world. And still enjoys the journey enough to keep at it, because this is what he does and who he is. By the end of the evening the audience was on their feet saluting someone who does not take lightly all the things he's accomplished since discovering the sanctity of the sound and the affirmation of what musicians can create when they come together. In so many ways, Barry Goldberg is now a wise elder in knowing where the best music comes from, and what it can accomplish when delivered with dignity and depth. This is someone who sees through the wall and finds a way to take others with him to the other side. Because Barry Goldberg believes.

By Bill Bentley