Julie Gold

While holding a secretarial post at HBO's New York headquarters, Julie Gold received a pivotal telephone call from Nanci Griffith that redirected her career. An emerging singer and songwriter still awaiting her breakthrough, Gold saw her composition "From a Distance" reach Griffith after Christine Lavin forwarded a recording. Deeply moved by the piece, Griffith telephoned Gold to request permission to record it for the album Lone Star State of Mind.

Griffith's version proved the first of many subsequent interpretations. Bette Midler's 1990 treatment earned a Grammy Award for Song of the Year, while an assortment of other artists—including James Galway, Jack Jones, Patti LaBelle, Cliff Richard, Donna Summer, Phil Coulter, Kathy Mattea, the Byrds, Judy Collins, the Fujees, Andrea Marcovicci, Patti Lupone, and the Texas Boys Choir—also recorded the song.

BMI later presented Gold with an award acknowledging more than two million radio airplays; the composition simultaneously served as an anthem throughout Ireland and earned a Minute Man award from the U.S. Army for bolstering service members during the Persian Gulf War.

A Temple University graduate from Philadelphia, Gold moved to New York in 1978 intent on building a career as a singer and songwriter. Although equipped with management, regular engagements, and a robust body of material, she experienced limited advancement until immersing herself in the Greenwich Village songwriter community that fostered both the Songwriters Cooperative and Fast Folk Music Magazine.

Frequent open-mike appearances introduced Gold to future notables such as John Gorka, Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, and Christine Lavin, who ultimately became her mentor.

Gold assumed Patty Larkin's role in Lavin's revue Four Bitchin' Babes in 1991. She continued with the ensemble through the release of its second album, Buy Me, Bring Me, Take Me: Don't Mess with My Hair...Volume 2, supplying lead vocals and piano for her own pieces "Try Love," "(Fun To Be) Perfect," "Good Night, New York," and a new recording of "From a Distance."

In December 1997 Gold joined comedian Julie Halston for the show Julie2 at the Eighty Eight in New York's Greenwich Village. She had recently finished writing the musical The Perfect Day, which she intended to produce. Her debut solo album, Dream Gold, appeared in April 1998 and contained her original demo versions of "Goodnight, New York" and "From a Distance." Try Love followed two years afterward.