(2020)Andrew Gold – Something New: Unreleased Gold


Review:
Omnivore’s 2020 collection Something New: Unreleased Gold unearths demo recordings Andrew Gold cut at Clover Recorders with Chuck Plotkin during a pair of sessions in 1973 while he continued to lead Linda Ronstadt’s backing band but had his eyes on a solo career. After he helped turn Ronstadt’s Heart Like a Wheel into a smash hit, he was onto something else by 1975; by that point, had discarded most of the material here in favor of a fresh songbook, leaving Something New: Unreleased Gold as a sort of prehistory to his career as a recording artist. Much of the album plays like a demo tape, particularly the preponderance of songs where he’s supported by no more than a guitar or piano. These unadorned tracks do demonstrate his songwriting chops but it’s the full-band demos that display his talent for arrangement and melody. “Something New” and “Prisoner” — and, on the CD, “A Note from You” — are the hooks into the rest of the album, which tends to be stronger when he’s sitting at the piano delivering stately pop and sprightly trifles such as “Timothy Corey.” While these beg to be fleshed out, they’re still graceful and clever, the very qualities that flourished once he signed with Asylum and put out a series of slick soft rock LPs in the late ’70s. Make no mistake, Something New is rougher than any of these, particularly when he’s strumming a doleful acoustic guitar, but his core signatures are in place, making this collection low-key revelatory in addition to being quite fun.





Track Listing:
01 - Something New (Band Version)
02 - Come Down to Me (Solo Demo)
03 - What You Do Is What You See (Solo Demo)
04 - The World Tomorrow Brings (Solo Demo)
05 - You Are Somewhere Within Me (Solo Demo)
06 - Sometimes When a Man's On His Own (Solo Demo)
07 - Prisoner (Band Version)
08 - Ten Years Behind Me (Solo Demo)
09 - Timothy Corey (Solo Demo)
10 - Almost Love (Solo Demo)
11 - Penny Arcade (Solo Demo)
12 - Don't Bring Me Down (Solo Demo)
13 - Resting in Your Love (Band Version)
14 - Joseph (Solo Demo)
15 - A Note from You (Alternate Band Version)
16 - To Be Someone (Solo Demo)


Media Report:
Genre: pop, soft rock
Country: USA
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits