--Can you talk about him as a person and what gifts he had as a musician.

I went to high school with Andrew, and our fathers were friends and colleagues. We started playing music together when I was 14 and he was 13 or so. It was already clear that he was tremendously gifted, and was definitely going to go his own way, with his own style. We were very close friends and collaborators for many years.

Andrew was an enormously brilliant, lively, inquisitive, and sometimes, tortured soul. He defaulted to joy whenever possible, and his sense of humor, from the time I knew him at 13, was always expansive, delightful, and wicked.

The general public does not know that Andrew was one of the most gifted musicians of our times-he was, without a doubt, a genius. He had a photographic 'ear', if I can say that. He would hear something, down to the subtlest inversion or nuance--and capture it perfectly. As a kid he was a tremendous Beatles fan, and he studied, and absorbed, perfectly, their entire catalog. He was the only person I ever knew who could truly and perfectly reproduce the exact voicings, licks, settings, precise instrument used, everything--in a Beatles tune, a Byrds tune, in a Beach Boys tune, a Led Zeppelin tune or anything else that really rocked his world--long before the internet, cds, or any way to take pop music apart except by ear. He listened to everything under the sun, and absorbed with a terrifying accuracy--it was something I always admired and found fascinating about him. He and I shared all kinds of music with each other, as we did with Kenny Edwards--and Andrew had a habit of falling in love with certain songs, and going as deeply as anyone can into learning how that music was constructed--and also, shouting to the world that this was something everyone needed to hear.

He was an extraordinary guitarist, pianist, drummer, and record producer. One of the finest I've ever known. I believe that "You're No Good, " the wonderful Linda Ronstadt track, was basically all Andrew, with one track of Kenny Edwards. We need to check that for accuracy, but I think you'll find that I'm pretty close. I believe Andrew is playing drums on that one too. His harmonic sensibility, the melodic style embedded in his dna, was very refined, adventurous, always surprising, and very broad. Of course, he was the son of a great composer and a great singer, and the apple fell not far from the tree.

Another thing about Andrew that people don't know--he was as gifted a visual artist as he was a musician. As a young man, he had a moment of decision whether to pursue art or music. I'm glad for the choice he made.

--How did he fit in the development of the country rock sound that developed in LA in the 1970s?

In the amazing soup of California folk rock music that was brewing in the late 60s and the early 70s, there were some key moments of hybridization and cross pollinization--people meeting people, people learning from each other, and sharing the music they arrived with. I'm talking about the arrival of guys like JD Souther and Glen Frey, the emergence of Jackson Browne, the great bands such as the Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds , Taj Mahal and his astonishing band--there were so many amazing moments in this world that was being born. Such a moment was when Andrew, who was a pop rock musician at heart already by the time he was 16, started working with Kenny Edwards, and myself, who were more influenced by traditional blues and ethnic American mountain music--and Karla Bonoff, whose influences were some of the more sophisticated emerging singer songwriters. Kenny had already played with Ronstadt in the Stone Poneys when Andrew and I met him. We formed Bryndle, which was based on our songwriting, our 4 part harmonies, and the hybrid sound that came about between Andrew and Karla's influences, and Kenny's and mine. I explain this now because when Bryndle split up (to be reunited in the 90s, I'm now so happy and so sad to say-) Kenny and Andrew went into Linda's band, and the soup heated up.

In the Stone Poneys, Linda, Kenny Edwards, and Bobby Kimmel had been exploring, back in the late 60s, a combination of blues, country, gospel and pop. They had toured across America as a folk trio, playing with both the likes of the Chambers Brothers and Bill Monroe--and when they arrived in LA, (Kenny being a native Angeleno) they were already carrying with them the seeds of the new music that would be born in California. In the new Ronstadt band, Andrew, ever the greatest ear in town, absorbed not only all that Kenny and LInda had to share with him, but was able in turn add to it his absolute passion for rock and pop music. Combined with his stunning accuracy in the studio, and the very wise guidance of producer Peter Asher, the soup came to perfection in the early Ronstadt albums. I remind us all that the Stone Poneys, Bryndle, and Ronstadt as a solo "folk rock" artist all pre-dated the formation of the Eagles, who were on one tour, HER backup band. As it was a small community, every new idea resonated around town, and the water rose, carrying all the boats.

Andrew developed a sound that was accurate, melodic, soulful, and that drew on everything he had heard, from Robert Johnson to Led Zeppelin, to the Byrds, to Paul McCartney--and he brought it into the studio with the full arsenal he possessed: his fantastic technique, his incredible and original sense of melody, his love of recording, and his extreme enthusiasm for making music.

--Linda Ronstadt talked about meeting Andrew at a Stone Poneys concert at Oakwood School, which I think is North Hollywood, do you have memories of that?

How could I forget? We were at Oakwood, and our teacher, mentor, first husband and dear friend Ken Waldman, brought the Stone Poneys to do a concert for us. He had known them as a music fan not only in Arizona, where he had grown up around the Ronstadts, but later when he was in Cambridge, at Harvard, and a fan of the Club 47, a host in his apartment for his musical friends on tour such as the Stone Poneys and the Jim Kweskin Jug Band. Andrew, his best friend and my long time collaborator Peter Bernstein and I came to this concert and were blown away by the trio of Ronstadt, Edwards, and Kimmel. We already had a jug band by then--with Carl Stone on washboard (now a well known avant garde composer) and Jimmy Wood, the great soul and blues singer in LA--we were all between the ages of 13 and 16 when we saw the Stone Poneys. Little did we know that within four years, Andrew and I would be in a band with Kenny Edwards and Karla Bonoff, and shortly thereafter, they would be playing and making hits, and changing the world in the studio with Ronstadt.

People don't know the history of southern California folk rock, what you call California country. But all around the world, this music has proven to be one of the largest catalog sales, and most enduring of all forms of American pop music. It became fashionable to make fun of it, and even Andrew, when he had his solo hits, became for a time, a punching bag for the press, which had turned on the Los Angeles sound of the 70s with a vengeance by the early 80s--it just wasn't hip anymore. But around the world, this music, built in so many ways on the pillars of the work of the early Ronstadt band, my beloved colleagues, Peter Asher, and others like them in the community, will live a long time, and continue to inspire generations, as it has in Nashville and elsewhere.

--Can you talk about Bryndle, the kind of music you produced.

Bryndle was the musical love of my life. We are so blessed that there are finally some recordings of us, some recordings I'm really proud of.

We formed the band at the end of the 60s--to write songs, to do 4 part harmony, to find new land between the blues and ethnic music of Kenny and myself, and the crisp, clean gorgeous sound of Karla Bonoff, and the walking musical encyclopedia that was Andrew. We formed before the Eagles, long before the pop incarnation of Fleetwood Mac--we had no idea what we were doing, but we were magical. We blew apart, but we each went out into the industry and played key roles, carrying with us the imprint of our work together and what we had discovered. We became studio players, producers, songwriters, backup singers and writers on countless records--our vocal sound was and still is familiar but unknown. After Ronstadt, Andrew became a hit artist, Kenny produced Karla's hit records, I went to Nashville--but we never forgot our roots. Bryndle had true sibling harmony, and it's evident in all of our recorded music. We broke up too early, but we were blessed to reunite many years later.

Tonight my heart is broken, but I'm lucky to have worked with and loved Andrew Gold, who was a magnificent human being, brilliant musician , great father, and great character--and with the wonderful, and deeply missed Kenny Edwards, who was my musical twin--and to have still, in sorrow, my dear Karla Bonoff.

Wendy Waldman

www.wendywaldman.com