Andrew Gold, who died of a heart attack on June 3 at the age of 59, was one of popular music's busiest ants in a world of rock stars who party like grasshoppers. It is probably regrettable that he will be best remembered for his 1977 hit single "Lonely Boy," which peaked at number seven on the Billboard singles charts 34 years ago this month.
"Lonely Boy" was a miserable excuse for a song, about a kid who leaves home at eighteen years of age after whining about how his parents paid too much attention to his younger sister at his expense. The song ends with the young man's nephew (his sister's son) receiving the kind of attention the young man felt he missed out on in his own childhood. Although Gold used autobiographical details in the song, he insisted that it wasn't about himself, claiming to have had a happy childhood. Some critics were left to wonder about that. (By the way, Gold had two younger sisters.)
But Gold was a lot more than the dude who sang "Lonely Boy." He was also an multi-instrumentalist who, among other things, worked with all but one of the former Beatles (George Harrison was the exception), was a second engineer on Joni Mitchell's 1971 album Blue, worked with the Eagles and Jackson Browne, formed a duo (Wax) with 10cc alumnus (and Yardbirds songwriter) Glenn Gouldmann, played a good deal of the instruments on Art Garfunkel's 1975 album Breakaway (and all of them on Garfunkel's hit cover of the standard "I Only Have Eyes for You," from that same LP), and was in Linda Ronstadt's band from 1973 to 1977, handling most of the arrangements and working in concert with producer Peter Asher.
A consummate professional musician, Gold was literally born into his career. His father, Ernest Gold, was a film score composer, and his mother is noted film vocalist Marni Nixon, who did the singing in Hollywood musicals that talented actresses who were not talented singers would lip-sync to. (As someone who usually worked under the radar, the younger Gold can truly be called his mother's son.) Though Gold was indeed a skilled pro and a reliable session man, his Hollywood professionalism could be a liability as much as an asset. His precise musicianship could sometimes leave the music sounding too polished and bland, smoothing out whatever edge it had. In their book "The Worst Rock and Roll Records of All Time," Jimmy Guterman and Owen O'Donnell singled out Gold as the main culprit who kept Linda Ronstadt from being a serious rock singer, undercutting her with his exact arrangements.
Still, on balance, Gold left a formidable legacy on the many records he produced and/or performed on, even if his best-known work as a frontman may leave something to be desired. But even in that role, Gold could excel. His other big Top 40 hit, the 1978 single "Thank You For Being a Friend," was a nice toe tapper that lives on (albeit in an inferior Sun Belt "countrypolitan" version) as the theme song for the sitcom "The Golden Girls," still in reruns. If that song makes you smile, thank Andrew Gold for that - and seek out his own superior recording. R.I.P.
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