Andrew Gold, a pop wunderkind who had barely finished high school when Linda Ronstadt enlisted him to play in her backup band, and who later had a successful recording career of his own with hits like “Lonely Boy” and “Thank You for Being a Friend,” died on Friday at his home in Encino, Calif. He had cancer but had been responding well to treatment, she said.He played several instruments, did arrangements and sang on such Ronstadt albums as "Heart Like a Wheel" in 1974, "Prisoner in Disguise" in 1975 and "Hasten Down the Wind" in 1976. In addition to his instrumental and arranging work for Ms. Ronstadt’s breakout 1974 album, “Heart Like a Wheel,” Mr. Gold was a much sought after musician whose guitar and piano work (he also played bass and drums) helped define the seamless texture of recordings by artists like James Taylor, Carly Simon, Maria Muldaur, Jackson Browne and Loudon Wainwright III. "He was so bubbly and so smart and we were so impressed with what a good musician he was. Ms. Nixon, a classically trained soprano who has performed on Broadway and with the New York Philharmonic, is best known for dubbing the movie singing voices of Natalie Wood in “West Side Story” and Audrey Hepburn in “My Fair Lady.” His father, Ernest Gold, who died in 1999, wrote the Academy Award-winning score for the movie “Exodus,” as well as the scores for “Judgment at Nuremberg” and “Ship of Fools.”
– Singer, songwriter, instrumentalist, and producer Andrew Gold may not have been a household name, but the Los Angeles pop-rock style he helped shape in the '70s was heard around the world. Gold, who has died at the age of 59, joined Linda Ronstadt's backing band straight after high school. His guitar and piano work helped define the sound of musicians like James Taylor and Carly Simon, the New York Times notes. He also enjoyed solo success with pop hits like 1977's "Lonely Boy" and "Thank You for Being a Friend," which later became the theme song for Golden Girls. The son of two prominent musicians, he later went on to record with artists including Celine Dion, Cher, and every Beatle except John Lennon. "Andrew was so enormously talented it almost seemed effortless," Ronstadt tells the Los Angeles Times. "He was a real cornerstone of those early records." Gold, who is survived by his wife and his three children from an earlier marriage, died in his sleep at his Los Angeles home; he had cancer.