Julie Gold performs her hits, including the Grammy-winning ‘From a Distance,’ April 4 and May 1 and June 6 at The Duplex.
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By Dustin Fitzharris
Friday, March 28, 2008
From a distance, you can see the Empire State Building as the sun goes down. From a distance, you can see the Hudson River and the waves that carry boats to shore. From a distance, you can see the empty space where the Twin Towers once stood. Every day this is what Julie Gold, Grammy Award-winning songwriter for the timeless anthem, “From a Distance,” can see atop her 17th floor apartment in Greenwich Village.
She’s comfortable, dressed in jeans and a black turtleneck. Slouching on her leather couch, surrounded by oversized plants and petting one of her three cats, she is still in awe of the city that she moved to exactly 30 years ago.
“What I adore about New York is diversity,” Gold says while looking at the Hudson that brought her parents to this country in 1930 from Moscow. “I love that I can ride the subway and be on a car with every ethnicity, every sexual preference, every age and every aroma. I don’t have to travel the world—I just have to take the subway.”
Setting out to become the next Carole King, Gold, a Jewish girl from Philadelphia, moved to New York, drawn here by the first record she ever bought, Petula Clark’s “Downtown.” Gold got a gig playing on West 13th Street at Reno Sweeney’s, the hub of cabaret until it was sold in 1979 and transformed into a disco.
“I knew then that I wanted it enough to die trying. I still die trying every day of my whole life!”
She’s brutally honest. Once a month through June, you can find Gold hard at work on stage at the Duplex. The last time Gold performed there she won numerous MAC (Manhattan Association of Cabarets) Awards. The next show is 7 p.m., Friday, April 4, followed by Thursday, May 1.
“I love the Duplex because it’s within a half mile from my home and every single song that I perform was written within a few blocks from my gig. I live in the Village. I work in the Village. My people are in the Village. And my inspiration is in the Village.”
In her apartment, a Grammy and multiple gold records vie for display space with extensive Pez Candy Dispensers and a Troll Doll collection—a nod to her childlike obsessions.
“I was a tomboy,” she says. “I loved nature, swimming and animals” she says. “Nothing that I ever was has changed. I’m just an older version of what I’ve always been.”
For the last four and a half years, Gold has found the one to share her life and music with, her partner Laura. She beams when she talks about her and always makes it clear when she’s asked to attend events that she needs two tickets.
“I waited a lifetime to meet my mate, and I’m not going to anything alone,” Gold says. “I’m only half a person if she’s not with me in spirit or real time. It’s a lonely place if she’s not with me.”
After years of writing and pitching songs, Gold isn’t suffering the pains of performing in order to get famous (during her run, she avoids any foods and beverages that make her look bloated on stage).
“It’s not like I’m doing it to be discovered. I’m too old to be discovered! I’m doing it for the love of music and performing.”
Gold says her life changed twice. The first time was when her parents took her to see a production of “My Fair Lady” for her fourth birthday. Gold felt like she had been let into a “magical kingdom.” The following day, she spent in tears because she missed the characters so much.
Four years later, on a Sunday evening in 1964, Gold discovered four men who became her greatest inspiration, the Beatles.
Suddenly, while reminiscing about the Fab Four, she fidgets on the couch, trying to get something out of her pocket. Out of it she pulls what looks like a silver stone with the word “Imagine” on it. She carries it every day.
“Whatever it was about the Beatles that was so deep and potent—it changed my life forever.”
Surprisingly, the songwriter is without words when it comes to the reason why. But, she does confess to one thing.
“I’m a one band woman,” Gold says as she points to her albums. “To this day I don’t own any other white band in any form in my music collection.”
Though Gold doesn’t say her life changed a third time, it’s hard to forget about the moment she wrote that song in Dec. 1985. At the time, Gold was working as a receptionist at HBO. She took a day off because her piano—the one she played as child—was being delivered to her studio as an early birthday gift from her parents.
Gold was anxious to get reacquainted with her instrument right away, but was given crushing news. Since the piano had sat on a cold truck and was like a brick of ice, she couldn’t play it for a day.
“For 24 hours I just sort of hugged it and polished it,” Gold said. “At that time I had a loft bed. I had to go up a steep ladder, and all night long I looked down on my piano. The next morning I came down the ladder, sat at my piano and wrote ‘From a Distance.’”
Once it was finished, Gold kissed the piano keys—a ritual she still practices today— and said, “I wonder if that’s the last song I’ll ever write.”
She had no inkling that “From a Distance,” written in her tiny studio located at 242 West 4th between 10th and Charles, would be the song that would change her life. Gold began sending cassettes of the song out for record executives to hear. The song got in the hands of legendary record mogul Clive Davis, who is responsible for launching countless careers, such as Whitney Houston and Aerosmith. Surely Davis knows a hit song when hears one.
“I still have a hand written note from him telling me ‘From a Distance’ is a beautiful song, but it’s just not a hit in today’s market.”
Davis didn’t want it, but singer/songwriter Nanci Griffith did. Griffith had a very successful career in Ireland and made the song a sensation overseas. Five years later, Bette Midler was flying high on the rebirth of her musical career with “Wind Beneath My Wings” and was looking for songs for her next musical project. Stephen Holden, longstanding critic for the “New York Times,” suggested “From a Distance” to Midler’s musical director. The rest is history.
The song quickly rose up the charts and became an anthem of peace during the Gulf War. On Feb. 20, 1991, Gold’s name was announced as the winner of “Song of the Year” at the Grammy Awards.
The moon now hovers over the Big Apple. Gold gets off the couch, goes to her glass case and turns the light on. Her Grammy is in the spotlight.
“I’m proud of it, and I’m still in disbelief that it ever happened,” Gold says never taking her eyes off the Grammy. “The Grammys just celebrated their 50th anniversary. There have only been 50 songs of the year, and I have one. It’s like a Faberge Egg.”
For information and tickets, visit juliegold.com.
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