Andrew Gold - ...and on guitar (1981)

Andrew Maurice Gold was born on August 2, 1951 in Burbank, California, and eventually followed his parents into show business, as his mother was 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, while his father was Ernest Gold, an Austrian-born composer who won an Academy Award for his score for the movie 'Exodus'. He began writing songs at the age of 13, and while in school in the UK for one year, the 16-year-old Gold scored his first recording contract on the strength of a selection of demos he submitted to Polydor Records' London office. That contract resulted in the single 'Of All the Little Girls', which was recorded with his friend and collaborator Charlie Villiers, and released in 1967 under the name Villiers and Gold. By the early 1970's, Gold was working full-time as a musician, songwriter and record producer, as well as being a member of the Los Angeles band Bryndle, alongside Kenny Edwards, Wendy Waldman and Karla Bonoff, who released the single 'Woke Up This Morning' in 1970. Four years later he played a major role as multi-instrumentalist and arranger for Linda Ronstadt's breakthrough album 'Heart Like A Wheel', as well as her next two albums. After Ronstadt's 'Hasten Down The Wind', he began a career as a solo artist, but was still loyal to Rondstadt, playing the majority of instruments on her only No. 1 Billboard hit single 'You're No Good', as well as playing in her band from 1973 until 1977, and then sporadically throughout the 1980's and 1990's. In 1975 Gold played most of the instruments on Art Garfunkel's solo hit 'I Only Have Eyes For You' and also released his eponymous debut solo album. His second studio album 'What's Wrong with This Picture?' came out in 1976, and contained the hot single 'Lonely Boy', which reached No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 in June 1977. The same year he played guitar on two cuts of Eric Carmen's album 'Boats Against the Current', including 'She Did It', and in 1978 his single 'Thank You for Being A Friend' from his third album 'All This And Heaven Too', peaked at No. 25 in 1978, and later gained more popularity as the theme song for 'The Golden Girls' TV series, as performed by Cindy Fee. His biggest hit in the UK was 'Never Let Her Slip Away', which peaked at number five on the UK Singles Chart on two occasions, firstly by Gold himself in 1978 and again by dance-pop group Undercover in 1992, with Gold's friend Freddie Mercury being an uncredited background singer. 

In 1981 Gold produced, co-wrote, sang and played on three songs that appeared as bonus tracks on the re-issue of the hit-making pop-rock band 10cc's 1981 album 'Ten Out Of 10', after which Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman invited him to become a member of the band, but business conflicts prevented him from joining their ranks. In late 1983 10cc broke up, and in the aftermath, Gold and Gouldman formed Wax, who recorded and toured for five years, enjoying international success, particularly in the UK, where the duo had several hits including 'Right Between The Eyes', and their biggest hit 'Bridge To Your Heart'. Gold played on Cher's hit 1989 album 'Heart Of Stone' and during the early '90s he wrote and composed hits for Trisha Yearwood as well as Wynonna Judd, for whom he co-wrote the No. 1 single 'I Saw The Light' with Lisa Angelle. In the 1990's, Gold once again joined forces with ex-bandmates Karla Bonoff, Wendy Waldman and Kenny Edwards to re-form Bryndle and release their first full-length album 'Bryndle', but left the band in 1996 to release the children's Halloween-oriented novelty album 'Halloween Howls With John Waite', featuring the track 'Spooky Scary Skeletons', and the same year he released his sixth solo album '....Since 1951'. In 1997 he released the 60's influenced psychedelic 'Greetings From Planet Love' under the pseudonym 'The Fraternal Order Of the All' on his own QBrain Records label, and if you love what XTC did with The Dukes Of Stratosphere then you really do have to hear this truly brilliant album. Gold essentially played all the instruments and sang all of the vocals on original songs in the style of his favorite 1960's bands such as The Beatles, The Byrds and The Beach Boys, and it's all done with much love and respect. He continued to record and release solo albums in the 2000's, as well as forming a Byrds tribute band Byrds Of A Feather, which performed in the Los Angeles area. In the late 2010's he was diagnosed with kidney cancer, and although he responded well to treatment, on 3 June 2011 he died in his sleep from what is suspected to have been heart failure, at the criminally young age of 59. Gold truly was the consummate musician, being able to play a large variety of instruments, as well as writing and producing hits for himself and other artists, and helping them out whenever he could by playing piano, drums, ukelele and acoustic guitar on their albums, and this tribute includes just a small selection of them where he added his electric guitar to their songs.   

Track listing

Disc One
01 Of All The Little Girls (single by Villiers & Gold 1967)
02 Woke Up This Morning (single by Bryndle 1970)
03 Sweet Turnstyle Blues (from 'Gypsy Moth' by Stephen Ambrose 1972)
04 Train Song (from 'Love Has Got Me' by Wendy Waldman 1973)
05 Isn't It Always Love (from 'Isn't It Always Love' by Karen Alexander 1975)
06 Highway Affair (from 'Farewell Fairbanks' by Randy Edelman 1975)
07 Jesus For Tonight (from 'Michel Polnareff' by Michel Polnareff 1975)
08 Love Out In The Street (from 'Playing Possum' by Carly Simon 1975) 
09 Roll Um Easy (from 'Prisoner In Disguise' by Linda Ronstadt 1975)
10 Looking For The Right One (from 'Breakaway' by Art Garfunkel 1975) 
11 On And On (from 'Careless' by Stephen Bishop 1976)

Disc Two
01 If You Have Crying Eyes (from 'Black Rose' by John David Souther 1976) 
02 Complainte Pour Ste-Catherine (from 'Kate & Anna McGarrigle' by Kate & Anna McGarrigle 1976)
03 I Hear The Laughter (from 'Endless Flight' by Leo Sayer 1976)
04 She Did It (from 'Boats Against The Current' by Eric Carmen 1977) 
05 Isn't That So? (from 'Glenda Griffith' by Glenda Griffith 1977)
06 I Can't Hold On (from 'Karla Bonoff' by Karla Bonoff 1977)
07 Runnin' And Hidin' (from 'Mr. Lucky' by Fools Gold 1977) 
08 Don't Make Me Over (from 'Shot Through The Heart' by Jennifer Warnes 1979)
09 I Did My Part (from 'Heartbreak Radio' by Rita Coolidge' 1981)
10 Runaway (bonus track from 'Ten Out Of 10' by 10cc 1981)