Lotti Golden (born November 27, 1949) is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, poet and artist. Golden is best known as an artist for her 1969 debut album Motor-Cycle, on Atlantic Records as well as her long career as a songwriter for other artists in collaboration with Tommy Faragher, Richard Scher, and others.
Winner of the ASCAP Pop Award for songwritingThe Hollywood reporter, Volume 317, Issues 19–34 Wilkerson Daily Corp., 1991-Performing Arts : "Lotti Golden, Arthur Baker, writers; Matak Music, MCA Inc., Mygag Music, publishers Most Performed Standards from OCT. 1, 1989 to SEPT. 30, 1990" "With Every Beat of My Heart" and RIAA-certified Gold and Platinum awards as a writer/producer, Golden has written and produced Top 5 hits in the US"With Every Beat of My Heart" Joel Whitburn (1994) Top Pop Singles 1955–1993 Record Research Inc. Wisconsin, USA, page 155 (Top 5)"With Every Beat of My Heart" and abroad."Oh Baby I..." Dave McAleer (1999) Top 20 Charts, US and UK Miller Freeman Books, San Francisco CA 94107. Page 336."Oh Baby I..." Credited for her innovative work in early electro and hip hop music,Toop, David (2000). Rap Attack 3: African Rap To Global Hip Hop. (Expanded Third Edition) Serpent's Tail, London N4 2BT pp. 146, 148, 150–151 . Golden is featured in the Rap Attack 3: African Rap To Global Hip Hop by David Toop, and Signed, Sealed, and Delivered: True Life Stories of Women of Pop for her pioneering work as a female record producer.Steward, Sue and Garratt, Sheryl (1984) Signed, Sealed, and Delivered: True Life Stories of Women in Pop, South End Press, Boston, MA, 02116 pp. 78, 79, 80, 99. Golden's songs have been recorded by Grammy Award-winning artists Diana Ross, Celine Dion, Al Green, Patti LaBelle, B. B. King, Patti Austin, Sheena Easton, Helen Reddy, and more.
Early life
Childhood Lotti Golden was born in Manhattan to Sy (Seymour) Golden and Anita Golden (née Cohn), the elder of two daughters. Golden's parents, a strikingly handsome and fashionable pair, were avid jazz aficionados and foreign film buffs. Golden soaked up the sounds of Billie Holiday and John Coltrane from an early ageWheeler, Drew (May 16–29, 1988) "Golden & Faragher Have Something in Common". Music Connection, p. 24. developing a lifelong passion for music and the arts.
Golden grew up in Brooklyn, New York where she attended Canarsie High School, serving as the school's Poet Laureate."Canarsie, Newest HS, Is Dedicated to the Future". (January 16, 1965). Brooklyn World-Telegram, p. B1. Voted Most Likely to Succeed,Barry, Thomas (September 9, 1969). "The Salty Socking Soul of Lotti Golden". Look, pp. 76,76,78 Golden graduated with honors in 1967, winning the Creative Writing medal, the Lincoln Center Student Award for Academic Excellence, the Scholastic Magazine Award for National Achievement in Art, and a New York State Regents Scholarship. Golden was awarded the National League of Pen Women Prize for poetry"Pen Women Award Poetry Prizes". (February 2, 1967). The Villager (Greenwich Village. New York), p.5. and went on to attend Brooklyn College.
1964–1968: Early music career A birthday gift (a guitar) from Golden's parents at age eleven would chart her future course. Golden studied classical guitar and voice, but needing more of a creative outlet, soon found her niche as a singer-songwriter, using her abilities as both wordsmith and vocalist. To sing her compositions on demos Golden spent hours using a reel to reel tape recorder to perfect her vocal craft: "When women talk of their idols and influences...they tell stories about singing along with records, trying to emulate someone's voice...until they can begin to develop their own style." Golden explains: "I would practice singing to Aretha, Ray Charles, and the Marvelettes, till I could sing all of their licks and runs... the girls' bathroom in high school was a great place to try it out."
By the age of 14, Golden was making forays into Manhattan, singing on demo sessions and peddling her songs to publishers, eventually signing a contract with publisher Saturday Music as a staff writer and landing her first cover by Patti LaBelle and the Blue Belles."Dance to the Rhythm of Love". Over the Rainbow: The Atlantic Years." Popular Albums. All Media Guide, 2010. Answers.com June 27, 2010 By the time Golden completed high school, she had the beginnings of a musical autobiography about her adventures in New York's East Village and Lower East Side, where she was a resident member of the Henry Street Settlement Playhouse, honing her skills as an actress and playwright.Hentoff, Nat (July 1969) "Cosmo Listens to Records". Cosmopolitan, p.74. This would become the basis of her Atlantic Records debut LP, Motor-Cycle.Saal, Hubert (July 14, 1969). " The Girl's-Letting Go". Newsweek, pp. 68, 71.
Recording artist 1969: Debut LP: Motor-Cycle Released on Atlantic Records in 1969, Motor-Cycle is a chronicle of Golden's life informed by New York City's counterculture. "It was a strange, way out scene for pretty, 19-year-old Golden," who wrote her memoir in music and lyrics because, according to Golden, "a book is too flat." The songs on Motor-Cycle deal with subjects like gender identity ("The Space Queens (Silky is Sad)"), drug use ("Gonna Fay's"), and urban alienation ("Who Are Your Friends"). So essential was Golden's poetry and lyrics to the project, that a lyric sheet insert was included with the original release. The back cover of the LP contained the poem "Night was a Better Blanket," which alluded to the LP's backstory.
Golden was part of a new wave of female singers who began to shake up the status quo in the late Sixties. Breaking from the confines of pop they defined themselves by their confessional lyrics, taking on new controversial subject matter. In July 1969, Newsweek ran a feature story, "The Girls: Letting Go": "There has surfaced a new school of talented female troubadours, who not only sing, but write their own songs. What is common to them – to Joni Mitchell and Lotti Golden, to Laura Nyro, Melanie, and to Elyse Weinberg, are the personalized songs they write, like voyages of self-discovery, brimming with keen observation, and startling in the impact of their poetry"
Listed among the most influential albums of the era in The New York Times, "The Best of Rock: A Personal Discography," by music critic Nat Hentoff,Hentoff, Nat (March 8, 1970). "The Best of Rock: A Personal Discography". Sunday Section: Rock Recordings, The New York Times, p. M3. Motor-Cycle is a synthesis of stream of consciousness confessional poetry, R&B infused vocals and a "sometimes satiric mélange of rock, jazz, blues and soul" with lyrics that evoke "a Kerouac novel."
On an album of "restlessly epic roadhouse suites"PATH (May 29, 2008). 1969 "Lotti Golden- Motor-Cycle", Delorean, Tiny Mix Tapes Golden uses the story-based format, featuring a cast of archetypal characters while playing the part of "emcee" of her own "aberrant cabaret." Golden's coming of age saga is likely the first rock concept album by a female recording artist.Baker, Robb, (June 8, 1969). "The Sound", Chicago Tribune, p. S2.
Music critic Path, of Tiny Mix Tapes, explains how Motor-Cycle plays like a musical, transporting the listener to the late 1960s underground: "Golden gets help on Motor-Cycle from an impeccably arranged Atlantic Records session band... with a flawless, swinging rhythm team. Then, at key moments, the curtain goes up and they've got rows of saxes, trumpets, vibes...and you begin to realize that this is not the same song and dance... it's as if The Velvet Underground recorded for Motown." Golden writes of a "season in hell " she somehow manages to survive. "It's an extraordinary evocation of a life-style... and one girl's plunge into and out of it."
1968–69: The Making of Motor-Cycle
Golden signed a publishing deal as a staff writer with Saturday Music during her senior year of high school. One afternoon as Golden was riding the elevator to her demo session, the company's owner, Bob Crewe stepped in while Golden was singing. When Crewe nodded his approval, Golden seized the opportunity, and in one breath told Crewe she was a staff writer at his publishing company and working on material for her own artist album. Intrigued, Crewe set up a meeting: "When Lotti brought her material to Crewe in the fall of 1967, he exclaimed, 'Good God, who are your friends?'" referring to the outrageous characters populating Golden's songs. Crewe was sold on doing the project, but asked Golden if she could wait one year while he cleared his schedule, and in 1968 the pair began recording Golden's autobiographical opus, Motor-Cycle, "a synthesis of funky singing and honest hip lyrics about urban teenage trauma." Atlantic Records moguls, Jerry Wexler and Ahmet ErtegünWolman, Baron (2011). The Rolling Stone Years (Hardcover Edition) Omnibus Press, , p. 155, bought the [demo] tapes after one hearing, with Wexler "modestly telling his staff Golden would be the greatest single pop artist since Aretha Franklin."
The release of Motor-Cycle in 1969 generated considerable media interest in Golden. Look magazine described Golden's songs and poetry as "rich in metaphor and starkly descriptive of people and places," stating: "Even in her musically precocious generation, she [Golden] stands out as a singer composer of phenomenal power and originality." In addition to features in national publications, Lotti Golden was identified by Carrie Donovan of Vogue as a fashion trendsetter, making several appearances in the magazine."Vogue's Own Boutique: "How Does It Look in the Camera, Jack?" (February 1, 1969), Vogue, p. 234."Hair on Hair" (February 16, 1970). Vogue, p. 57. Though Golden made no TV appearances, her impact on the contemporary music scene was such that she is referenced in the cultural commentary on television, The Glass Teat.Ellison, Harlan (1977). The Glass Teat: Essays of Opinion on The Subject of Television, Jove Publications Inc., p. 219 "...isn't as gravelly as Judy Henske, she isn't as heavy or as gorgeous as Lotti Golden, but would you believe she puts Joan Baez and Judy Collins away proper?" "She and Lotti Golden and Janis Joplin and Laura Nyro are the female equivalents (coming on the scene a little later than their male counterparts) of Mose Allison, Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, and most recently Tony Joe White. ..." Still, Golden had concerns about the business side of her career, which she voiced in her Look magazine interview: "The easy part is to sit down and create. The hard part is trying to make yourself heard, the promotion."
For reasons that remain unclear today, Atlantic Records suddenly dropped the ball, failing to promote Motor-Cycle. It is curious that none of the songs, (all over five minutes in length), were edited down to the standard 7" format for radio, and no single was released ahead of the LP, a standard Industry practice. Atlantic was going through a major corporate restructuring; its roster was packed in 1969, with Golden's mentors Ahmet Ertegun signing British rock bands, and Jerry Wexler dividing his time between Miami and Muscle Shoals (Dusty Springfield, released on Atlantic that year) moving on.
In the years since its release, Motor-Cycle continues to gain popularity via the Internet, and social media "thanks to the unusual persistence of her [Golden's] art, and the power of listeners' preferences."Shannon, Mitchell (May 4, 2009) "For This No-hit Musical Wonder, the Golden Age May Be Just Beginning". The LP remains a rich source of samples, with Mark Oliver Everett using Golden's spoken voice from "Gonna Fay's" on his MC Honky project, to the original track from the LP, "Get Together (With Yourself)” appearing on the 2022 Hulu TV miniseries and soundtrack, Pam & Tommy.
Motor-Cycle 2025 Reissue Motor-Cycle was reissued In March 2025 by boutique label High Moon Records under the auspices of Warner Music Group/Atlantic Records.