He was born on a summer day, 1951 – and through the ’70s, Andrew Gold issued a handful of killer pop singles around the world while serving as an in-demand session musician. This summer, U.K. label Esoteric Recordings will collect his complete discography for Asylum Records along with some choice studio and live bonus material – a portion of which is being released for the first time!

Lonely Boy: The Asylum Years Anthology illustrates how Gold – the son of film composer Ernest and Hollywood singer Marni Nixon – stepped into the spotlight as a solo artist. He’d been working consistently as a producer, songwriter and instrumentalist since the late ’60s, releasing the single “Of All The Little Girls” with friend Charlie Villiers under the name Villiers and Gold – cut when he was only 16 years old. From there, he formed the folk-rock group Bryndle alongside Karla Bonoff, Wendy Waldman and guitarist Kenny Edwards, who, as a member of The Stone Poneys, introduced the world to a singer named Linda Ronstadt. (Bryndle’s sessions for A&M remained largely shelved, though the group reformed in the late ’90s and early ’00s with the original line-up.)

Soon, Gold was on Ronstadt’s radar, and joined the singer in studio for the sessions to her fifth solo album, 1974’s Heart Like a Wheel. Andrew played a variety of instruments on the album, including nearly everything on the chart-topping “You’re No Good,” and remained a key member of Ronstadt’s live band through the late ’70s. The same year his self-titled debut was issued by Asylum, the label Ronstadt joined several years earlier, Gold also worked on Art Garfunkel’s solo effort Breakaway, which scored a U.K. chart-topper with a cover of “I Only Have Eyes For You,” featuring his studio work prominently.

Andrew finally earned Stateside success with the pseudo-autobiographical soft rock classic “Lonely Boy.” It reached No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and just missed the U.K. Top 10 in 1977, less than a year after the release of sophomore album What’s Wrong With This Picture? Gold’s third album, All This and Heaven Too, featured two notable singles: “Never Let Her Slip Away,” a U.K. Top 5 hit (featuring uncredited harmony vocals by Queen frontman Freddie Mercury) and “Thank You For Being a Friend,” another bouncy pop-rock tune that was a minor Top 40 splash in America but gained a new lease on life as the theme song to the popular ’80s sitcom The Golden Girls (where it was sung by singer Cynthia Fee).

While Gold largely retreated from frontman status in the ’80s and ’90s, he did work in the studio with the likes of Cher, Vince Gill, Trisha Yearwood, Celine Dion and 10cc. His work on the latter band’s 1981 release Ten Out Of 10 led to a fruitful friendship and collaboration with the group’s co-founder Graham Gouldman; after 10cc’s breakup, Gold and Gouldman formed the group Wax, who issued a Top 20 through Europe in 1987 entitled “Bridge To Your Heart.” His notable solo work in the ’90s included “The Final Frontier,” the theme song to the sitcom Mad About You (this time sung by him) and an unlikely Halloween album that procured an unlikelier hit, the track “Spooky Scary Skeletons,” a fan among Internet meme creators. He died of heart failure in 2011 after a fight with kidney cancer.

The Lonely Boy box, building on Edsel’s compilation of the Asylum material from 2013, is a veritable treasure trove. It features all four of Gold’s solo albums for the label (billed as newly remastered) plus 16 bonus tracks issued on individual reissues of each album from the Collector’s Choice back in 2005. (Two tracks from those reissues – the pre-Asylum demos “Sometime When a Man’s On His Own” and “To Be Someone” – are not included here, but were recently included on Omnivore’s Something New: Unreleased Gold.) A sixth disc includes unreleased highlights from two live concerts: one recorded in Los Angeles at the start of 1977, and another recorded in London in the winter of 1976. A region-free DVD includes video from the London show, broadcast on the BBC’s The Old Grey Whistle Test, along with six vintage promo videos and an additional in-studio appearance on Whistle Test from 1978. An illustrated booklet with a new essay and an included poster round out the package.

You can thank Gold for being a friend to all lovers of great music when Lonely Boy is issued July 24. Full details and pre-order links are below!

Lonely Boy: The Asylum Years Anthology (Esoteric Recordings QECLEC72722 (U.K.), 2020) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

CD 1: Andrew Gold (1-10, released as Asylum 7E-1047, 1975) and bonus track (11, released on Collector’s Choice CCM 05282, 2005)

1. That’s Why I Love You
2. Heartaches in Heartaches
3. Love Hurts
4. A Note From You
5. Resting In Your Arms
6. I’m a Gambler
7. Endless Flight
8. Hang My Picture Straight
9. Ten Years Behind Me
10. I’m Coming Home
11. Hang My Picture Straight (Live @ The Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, Santa Monica, CA – 1975)

CD 2: What’s Wrong With This Picture? (released as Asylum 7E-1086, 1976)

1. Hope You Feel Good
2. Passing Thing
3. Do Wah Diddy
4. Learning The Game
5. Angel Woman
6. Must Be Crazy
7. Lonely Boy
8. Firefly
9. Stay
10. Go Back Home Again
11. One of Them Is Me

CD 3: All This and Heaven Too (1-10, released as Asylum 6E-116, 1978) and bonus track (11, released on Collector’s Choice CCM 05302, 2005)

1. How Can This Be Love?
2. Oh Urania (Take Me Away)
3. Still You Linger On
4. Never Let Her Slip Away
5. Always For You
6. Thank You For Being a Friend
7. Looking For My Love
8. Genevieve
9. I’m On My Way
10. You’re Free
11. Endless Flight (Live @ The Gator Bowl, Jacksonville, FL – 1978)

CD 4: Whirlwind (released as Asylum 6E-264, 1978)

1. Kiss This One Goodbye
2. Whirlwind
3. Sooner Or Later
4. Leave Her Alone
5. Little Company
6. Brand New Face
7. Nine To Five
8. Stranded On The Edge
9. Make Up Your Mind

CD 5: Outtakes and Unreleased Recordings

1. Within a Word
2. Broken Pin Ball Machine
3. Ten Years Behind Me (Demo)
4. Lonely Boy (Original Version)
5. Firefly (Early Unfinished Version)
6. Feel It
7. Gorilla Jam
8. Gambler (Version #1)
9. Still You Linger On (Alternate Take)
10. Thank You For Being a Friend (Outtake)
11. Genevieve (Original Version)
12. Gambler (Version #2)
13. Traffic Jam
14. The “In” Crowd

Tracks 1-3 recorded during the Andrew Gold sessions. Released on Collector’s Choice CCM 05272, 2005
Tracks 4-7 recorded during the What’s Wrong With This Picture? sessions. Released on Collector’s Choice CCM 05282, 2005
Tracks 8-11 recorded during the All This and Heaven Too sessions. Released on Collector’s Choice CCM 05292, 2005
Tracks 12-14 recorded during the Whirlwind sessions. Released on Collector’s Choice CCM 05302, 2005

CD 6: Live Recordings (all tracks previously unreleased except 1, released on Collector’s Choice CCM 05282, 2005)

1. Hope You Feel Good (Live @ The Universal Amphitheatre, Los Angeles, CA – 1/6/1977)
2. Stay (Live @ The Universal Amphitheatre, Los Angeles, CA – 1/6/1977)
3. That’s Why I Love You (Live @ The Universal Amphitheatre, Los Angeles, CA – 1/6/1977)
4. Endless Flight (Live @ The Universal Amphitheatre, Los Angeles, CA – 1/6/1977)
5. Learning The Game (Live @ The Universal Amphitheatre, Los Angeles, CA – 1/6/1977)
6. Hang My Picture Straight (Live @ The Universal Amphitheatre, Los Angeles, CA – 1/6/1977)
7. One Of Them Is Me (Live @ The Universal Amphitheatre, Los Angeles, CA – 1/6/1977)
8. Lonely Boy (Live @ The Universal Amphitheatre, Los Angeles, CA – 1/6/1977)
9. Heartaches in Heartaches (Live @ The New Victoria Theatre, London, England – 11/23/1976)
10. That’s Why I Love You (Live @ The New Victoria Theatre, London, England – 11/23/1976)
11. Endless Flight (Live @ The New Victoria Theatre, London, England – 11/23/1976)
12. Do Wah Diddy (Live @ The New Victoria Theatre, London, England – 11/23/1976)
13. Learning The Game (Live @ The New Victoria Theatre, London, England – 11/23/1976)
14. Angel Woman (Live @ The New Victoria Theatre, London, England – 11/23/1976)
15. Hope You Feel Good (Live @ The New Victoria Theatre, London, England – 11/23/1976)
16. One Of Them Is Me (Live @ The New Victoria Theatre, London, England – 11/23/1976)
17. Lonely Boy (Live @ The New Victoria Theatre, London, England – 11/23/1976)
18. Go Back Home Again (Live @ The New Victoria Theatre, London, England – 11/23/1976)

Tracks 9-18 broadcast on The Old Grey Whistle Test, BBC – 3/15/1977