Barry Goudreau

Barry Goudreau (born November 29, 1951) is an American guitarist. He was an original member of the rock band Boston alongside founders Brad Delp and Tom Scholz, having shared lead and rhythm guitar parts with the latter.

Goudreau had developed a musical interest at an early age and got his first guitar, an acoustic which he borrowed from a friend, at the age of 11. He began taking lessons and by the age of 13, joined his first band, the "Tornadoes". Aged 15, he joined another band with future Boston bandmate drummer Sib Hashian. They would often play at nightclubs, sometimes seven times a week. Later, he met up with Brad Delp and Fran Sheehan, both future members of Boston. He auditioned for Delp's band, but did not make the cut.

When he went to college at Boston University, he sought to get a degree in Geology. He tried to put music aside to focus on school, but he soon met up with Tom Scholz who was attending MIT right across the river.

Goudreau worked with Tom Scholz and Brad Delp as early as 1969 on an initial set of demo tapes, where he performed all of the rhythm and lead guitar work. These early attempts to attract record label interest did not succeed.

Later, Scholz reworked and rerecorded some of these demo songs and wrote several new songs for a second set of demo tapes, this time with Scholz performing all of the guitar, bass and keyboard parts. This second demo set won a recording contract with Epic Records.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.