[3] Golden's first noteworthy work was in 1996, playing upright bass in a New York City-based jazz sextet with Charlie Looker and Max Bernstein.
They gained recognition from Downbeat Magazine and were launched on a European tour, at the behest of the organizers of the 1997 Montreux Jazz Festival, where they played five performances.
Golden resurfaced on the music scene during the Summer of 2004, where he toured the festival circuit playing a guitar and mandolin-based repertoire of folk and blues-inspired pieces.
In 2004 and 2005, the Future of Music Coalition awarded him with back-to-back Fellowships and a review from Entertainment Today led to a meeting with Dylan/Cash producer, Bob Johnston.
Golden also played a shows with Summer at the Bowery Poetry Club in NYC and The Underground in Philadelphia, PA. What was to be his debut album as a singer-songwriter, Wake To These Satellites, was never released.
In its place, the dark folk album How To Breathe, was self-released in early 2006 and propelled a more modest tour, but one that saw Golden as a headliner at that summer's Cutting Edge (New Orleans) and Dewey Beach (Delaware) Americana Festivals.