Andrew Gold

Andrew Gold biography

Andrew Maurice Gold (August 2, 1951 - June 3, 2011) was an American singer, musician and songwriter. His works include the Top 10 single "Lonely Boy" (1977), as well as "Thank You for Being a Friend" (1978), and "Never Let Her Slip Away" (1978).

Gold was a multi-instrumentalist, and he was also an artist, producer, film composer, session musician, actor, and painter.

Early life

Gold was born in Burbank, California, and later joined a family business. His mother is singer Marni Nixon (who provided the singing voice for numerous actresses, notably Natalie Wood in West Side Story, Deborah Kerr in The King and I, and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady); his father was Ernest Gold, the Academy Award-winning composer for the movie Exodus. He has two younger sisters. Gold began writing songs at the age of 13.

Career

1970-79

By the early 1970s he was working as a musician, songwriter and record producer for many musicians. He was a member of the Los Angeles band Bryndle alongside Kenny Edwards, Wendy Waldman and Karla Bonoff. He played a major role as multi-instrumentalist and arranger for Linda Ronstadt's breakthrough album, 1974's Heart Like a Wheel, and her next four albums. Among other accomplishments, he played the majority of instruments on the album's first track, including the guitar work on "You're No Good," Ronstadt's first #1 single on the Billboard Hot 100, and the same on "When Will I Be Loved", "Heatwave", and many others. He was in her band from 1973 until 1977, and then sporadically throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

In 1975, Gold began recording as a solo artist, releasing four studio albums in the 1970s and over twelve since then. His hit single "Lonely Boy" reached #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in June, 1977 and has appeared in many film soundtracks, including Boogie Nights (1997) and Adam Sandler's movie Water Boy, among others. Although "Lonely Boy" was the bigger radio hit in the States, his single "Thank You For Being A Friend" (which peaked at #25 in 1978) later gained popularity as the theme song for the 1985-1992 NBC situation comedy The Golden Girls (performed by Cindy Fee for the show). Gold is also known for his biggest UK hit song "Never Let Her Slip Away", which was a UK #5 hit twice, by him and again at #5 fourteen years later by Undercover. Freddie Mercury, who was a friend of Gold's, has been mistakenly credited with assisting him with the harmony background vocals of the song. Gold himself explains in his liner notes for the CD version of 'All This & Heaven Too' that it was actually Timothy Schmit and J D Souther. Gold was pleased that Petula Clark covered 'Lonely Boy' in French ('Poor Lonesome Playboy'). It is on her 'Paris, Orleans, Paris' set. He attended one of her performances and reminded her that she had recorded the song. In 1976 Gold wrote the title track 'Endless Flight' for Leo Sayer's hit album.

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