Andrew Maurice Gold (August 2, 1951 – June 3, 2011) was an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, and record producer who influenced much of the Los Angeles-dominated pop/soft rock sound in the 1970s. Gold played on scores of records by other artists, most notably Linda Ronstadt’s, and had his own success with the U.S. top 40 hits “Lonely Boy” (1977) and “Thank You for Being a Friend” (1978), as well as the UK top five hit “Never Let Her Slip Away” (1978). In the 1980s, he had further international chart success as one half of Wax, a collaboration with 10cc’s Graham Gouldman.
During the 1990s, Gold produced, composed, performed on and wrote tracks for films, commercials, and television soundtracks, such as “Final Frontier”, the theme of the sitcom Mad About You. Some of his older works later experienced newfound popularity: “Thank You for Being a Friend” was used as the opening theme for The Golden Girls, and the children’s novelty song “Spooky Scary Skeletons” (1996) became an Internet meme in the 2010s. In 1997, Gold released a tribute to 1960s psychedelic music, Greetings from Planet Love, issued under the pseudonym “the Fraternal Order of the All”.
Gold was diagnosed with kidney cancer and responded well to treatment, but on June 3, 2011, he died in his sleep from what is suspected to have been heart failure at age 59 in Los Angeles.
Zachary “Zac” Alexander Brown born on July 31, 1978, in Atlanta, Georgia, is co-founder and lead singer of the Zac Brown Band. He was raised on Lake Lanier by his mother, Bettye, and stepfather Dr. Jody Moses, a dentist in Cumming, Georgia. The 11th of 12 children, Brown attended Mashburn Elementary School in Cumming; Lakeview Academy in Gainesville, Georgia; and South Forsyth High School in Cumming. He later moved to Dahlonega, Georgia, at age 17, where he graduated from Lumpkin County High School.
