(Old Lemons Are Yellow guitarist/new dad Paul Kaufman has something extra to celebrate this weekend.)
This is the first Father’s Day that I’m actually a father! This prompted me to share some musical thoughts with all of you.
Last fall, my dad was visiting the new baby and us, and one evening we saw one of those PBS retrospective/fundraiser specials highlighting major musical performances that had been on the Ed Sullivan show. Lots of classic bands at their peak: Beatles, Stones, Sam and Dave, Sly Stone, Byrds, et al.
This footage had all been shot when I was 0-5 years old, and that era remains the bedrock of my musical upbringing. However, to my daughter, the January 1967 performance of Mick Jagger asking to spend some … time … together is as distant from her birth as a scratchy newsreel of flappers dancing the Charleston is to mine. So, 40 years from now, will I be watching a Justin Bieber documentary with our grandkids?