Jeff Gold (born 1956) is an American music business executive, author, music historian, Grammy Award winning art director, and music memorabilia collector and dealer.
Gold was the first employee of Rhino Records, [1] and in 1975 produced the label's first release, "Go To Rhino Records" by Wild Man Fischer. [2] In 1977 he signed former Thirteenth Floor Elevators' singer Roky Erickson to Rhino, overseeing his comeback single, "Bermuda/The Interpreter," [3] and in 1981 signed Spirit to the label, supervising the release of their album The Adventures of Kaptain Kopter & Commander Cassidy in Potato Land." [4] "
In 1981 he joined A&M Records as assistant to president Gil Friesen; [1] he was later promoted to vice president of marketing & creative services [5] and worked with The Police, Cat Stevens, Iggy Pop [6] and Bryan Adams. [7] Gold wrote liner notes and helped compile albums by Cat Stevens, [8] Captain Beefheart, [9] and The Flying Burrito Brothers, [10] and was editor of the book "A&M Records: The First 25 Years". [11] Gold art directed album covers for numerous artists including The Neville Brothers, Al Green, and John Hiatt, [12] and in 1991 won a best album package Grammy Award for the Suzanne Vega album Days of Open Hand . [13]
In 1990 Gold joined Warner Bros. Records as senior vice president of creative services, working with artists including Seal, [14] R.E.M., [15] and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, [16] and art directed album covers for artists including Prince, [12] Miles Davis, [17] Jimi Hendrix, [18] Squeeze [19] and New Order. [20] He received Best Album Cover Grammy nominations for his work on packages for R.E.M, ZZ Top, and Paul Westerberg. He was an executive producer of the albums Stone Free: A Tribute to Jimi Hendrix (featuring Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Seal, and The Cure) and the soundtrack to the Howard Stern movie Private Parts . [12]
In 1991 Gold had the idea to include a Rock The Vote petition postcard supporting the Motor Voter Bill on the back of the longbox for R.E.M's Out of Time CD, resulting in thousands of postcards being delivered to the United States Senate, and lending critical support to the eventual passage of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. The podcast 99% Invisible devoted an episode to the R.E.M longbox, noting "R.E.M.’s Out of Time is the most politically significant album in the history of the United States. Because of its packaging." [21]
In 1993, Gold helped Warner Bros. Records establish the first online presence for a major record label, with dedicated Warner areas on AOL and CompuServe, and later the first website for a record company. [22] Gold was instrumental in the Warner/Elektra/Atlantic labels decision to sell cd's without the much maligned longbox, leading to an industry-wide phase-out. [23]
Gold was promoted to executive vice president/general manager of Warner Bros. Records in 1995, and left in 1998 in a management shakeup. [24]
In 2012 Gold's book 101 Essential Rock Records: The Golden Age of Vinyl, From The Beatles to the Sex Pistols, was issued by Gingko Press; it was one of eight books selected by Rolling Stone as "The year's best reading material". [25]
In 2016 Gold's book Total Chaos: The Story of The Stooges/As Told by Iggy Pop, was issued by Third Man Books, a division of Jack White's Third Man Records. It was chosen by Rough Trade as one of their ‘Books of the Year’, [26] and earned rave reviews in Esquire, [27] Mojo, Noisey, and many other publications. [11]
Gold's book, Sittin' In: Jazz Clubs of the 1940's and 1950's, was issued in November 2020 by HarperCollins. [28] Including interviews with Quincy Jones and Sonny Rollins, it was featured in the year-end wrap-ups of the best music books by The Wall Street Journal , The Daily Beast , The Atlanta Journal-Constitution , All Music Guide, and The Los Angeles Times , which called it "vivid and beautiful". [29]
Gold was profiled by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the five top collectors of music memorabilia [30] and named by Billboard as a "leading expert on rare lp's". [31] He was profiled in 2014 by the website Dust & Grooves. [32]
Gold has served as a curatorial consultant to museum exhibitions including the Experience Music Project's Bob Dylan's American Journey: 1955-1966, and Beatlemania! [33] He archived the papers of legendary music executive Mo Ostin for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; and those of A&M Records co-founders Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss for the University of California Los Angeles (U.C.L.A.) special collections library. [34]
Gold was an appraiser on VH1's "Rock Collectors", [35] and is profiled in the books Vinyl Junkies by Brett Milano, [36] Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction To Its Own Past by Simon Reynolds, [37] Why Vinyl Matters by Jennifer Otter Bickerdike (Jennifer Otter Bickerdike: Why Vinyl Matters, ACC Editions, 2017, pp. 208–213), and Iggy Pop & The Stooges: One Night at The Whisky 1970, by Ed Caraeff (Ed Caraeff: Iggy Pop & The Stooges: One Night at The Whiskey 1970, ACC Art Books, 2017, pp 113–117).
Gold has worked on archival and reissue album projects for artists including Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, The Velvet Underground, The Stooges and Gram Parsons. [12] His discovery of previously undocumented live and studio outtake tapes has led to major label releases, including the Bob Dylan album In Concert—Brandeis University 1963. [38]
Gold has appeared in music documentary films including the 1975 David Bowie BBC documentary Cracked Actor, [39] [40] the 2004 Prince BBC documentary Prince's Millions, [41] the 2016 R.E.M. NRK documentary History of the Hit Song, [42] and the 2020 film Music, Money and Madness...Jimi Hendrix in Maui. [43]
In 2013 Gold hosted a panel discussion and multimedia presentation on the vinyl record revival at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles. [44]
In 2019, Longreads ran an article about Gold titled How Jeff Gold Saved Rare Iggy Pop & The Stooges Recordings From the Dump. [45]
Gold operates the music memorabilia website Recordmecca [46] where he also blogs about topics of interest to collectors.
Gold is a well known Bob Dylan expert. In 2012 he appeared on PBS’ History Detectives (2012, Episode 1), authenticating previously unknown Bob Dylan handwritten manuscripts. [47] His 2014 discovery of 149 previously unknown Bob Dylan acetate records received extensive media attention, including articles in The New York Times [48] and The Wall Street Journal . [49] In 2016, Gold and colleague Laura Woolley appraised The Bob Dylan Archive, [11] now housed at the University of Tulsa.
Gold is a major donor to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's library and archives, which houses The Jeff Gold Collection. [33]
Gold formerly served as co-chairman of the youth voter registration organization Rock The Vote, which presented him (with his wife Jody Uttal) their Founder's Award in 1997. [33]
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music, and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame describes him as "arguably the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music."
The Stooges, originally billed as the Psychedelic Stooges, also known as Iggy and the Stooges, were an American rock band formed in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1967 by singer Iggy Pop, guitarist Ron Asheton, drummer Scott Asheton, and bassist Dave Alexander. Initially playing a raw, primitive style of rock and roll, the band sold few records in their original incarnation and gained a reputation for their confrontational performances, which often involved acts of self-mutilation by Iggy Pop.
James Newell Osterberg Jr., known professionally as Iggy Pop, is an American singer, musician, songwriter, actor, and radio broadcaster. Called the "Godfather of Punk", he was the vocalist and lyricist of proto-punk band The Stooges, who were formed in 1967 and have disbanded and reunited many times since.
Electric Ladyland is the third and final studio album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience and the final studio album released before Hendrix's death in 1970. A double album, it was the only record from the Experience produced by Hendrix. The band's most commercially successful release and its only number one album, it was released by Reprise Records in the United States on October 16, 1968, and by Track Records in the UK nine days later. By mid-November, it had reached number one on the U.S. charts, spending two weeks there. In the UK it peaked at number six, where it spent 12 weeks on the chart.
"All Along the Watchtower" is a song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan from his eighth studio album, John Wesley Harding (1967). The song was written by Dylan and produced by Bob Johnston. The song's lyrics, which in its original version contain twelve lines, feature a conversation between a joker and a thief. The song has been subject to various interpretations; some reviewers have noted that it echoes lines in the Book of Isaiah, Chapter 21, verses 5–9. Dylan has released several different live performances, and versions of the song are included on some of his subsequent greatest hits compilations.
Brian Albert Gordon Auger is an English jazz rock and rock music keyboardist who specialises in the Hammond organ.
Fun House is the second studio album by American rock band the Stooges. It was released on July 7, 1970, by Elektra Records. Though initially commercially unsuccessful, Fun House developed a strong cult following. Like its predecessor and its successor, it is generally considered integral in the development of punk rock.
The Stooges is the debut studio album by American rock band the Stooges, released on August 5, 1969 by Elektra Records. Considered a landmark proto-punk release, the album peaked at number 106 on the US Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. The tracks "I Wanna Be Your Dog" and "1969" were released as singles; "1969" was featured on Rolling Stone's list of the "100 Greatest Guitar Songs" at number 35.
Christopher Becker Whitley was an American blues/rock singer-songwriter and guitarist. During his 25-year career, he released more than a dozen albums, had two songs in the top 50 of the Billboard mainstream rock charts and received two Independent Music Awards. Whitley's sound was drawn from the traditions of blues, jazz and rock and he recorded songs by artists from many genres. He died in 2005 of lung cancer at the age of 45.
The Ultimate Experience is a 1992 compilation album of songs by American musician Jimi Hendrix. It includes 20 tracks spanning his career. The album was among the last to be supervised by interim producer Alan Douglas, before the Hendrix family regained control of his recording legacy. It has gone out-of-print and, in 1997, was replaced by the 20 track compilation Experience Hendrix: The Best of Jimi Hendrix.
Under the Covers: Essential Red Hot Chili Peppers is a compilation album released on March 31, 1998, by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. All of the songs featured are covers mainly from the band's early albums.
Jungle Records is a British independent record label formed in 1982, specialising in punk rock, post punk, gothic and alternative releases.
"Wild Thing" is a song written by American songwriter Chip Taylor and popularized by the English rock band the Troggs. It was originally recorded and released by the American rock band the Wild Ones in 1965, but it did not chart. The Troggs' single reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and number two on the UK Singles Chart in 1966. Their version of "Wild Thing" was ranked at number 257 on the Rolling Stone magazine's 2004 list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It has also been performed by many other musicians.
Crash Landing is a posthumous compilation album by American guitarist Jimi Hendrix. It was released in March and August 1975 in the US and the UK respectively. It was the first Hendrix album to be produced by Alan Douglas.
Midnight Lightning is a posthumous compilation album by American rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix. It was released in November 1975 by Reprise Records in the US and Polydor Records in the UK. It was the second to be produced by Alan Douglas and Tony Bongiovi and contains demo-type recordings that were overdubbed with musicians who had never played with Hendrix. Despite including reworkings of the popular live songs "Hear My Train" and "Machine Gun", the album was not as well received as its predecessor, peaking at numbers 43 in the US and 46 in the UK.
Open Up and Bleed! is a live album by Iggy and the Stooges that was released in 1995. The copy on the CD cover shows a subtitle – "The Great Lost Stooges Album?" – and suggests a line-up of songs that the band had been performing in their live shows, which might have been collected into a fourth studio album by the band that was never released.
The Essential Jimi Hendrix is a compilation album of songs by American rock musician Jimi Hendrix, released in 1978 by Reprise Records. Some editions in the UK, Japan and Italy also contained a 7-inch 331⁄3 rpm one-sided EP single of the Jimi Hendrix Experience performing the song "Gloria".
Gotta Serve Somebody: The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan is a tribute album independently produced by Jeffrey Gaskill of Burning Rose Productions, Ltd. and released under license on the Sony/Columbia label in 2003. The compilation features traditional and contemporary gospel singers performing songs written by Bob Dylan during his "born again" period (1979–81).
George Marino was an American mastering engineer known for working on albums by rock bands starting in the late 1960s.
Exploito is a term generally given to describe cover version or sound-alike recordings that capitalize on the official recordings of artists. Typically they are of the budget release type of album. Often the buying public would think they are buying an album by the actual artist.