Honoring Will Holt (1929–2015)
The past few weeks, I have been preparing mentally for the passing of my father. For a few years he has been in poor and declining health and the onset of alzheimer’s left him barely recognizing the obvious and familiar. It is a tough road to experience, but I came to be at peace with the inevitable. For a man as vibrant, creative and full of life as he had been, to be unable to be living as he would have wished, I simply wanted to insure he was comfortable and pain free as possible.
My father was born in 1929 and grew up in Portland and North Bridgton, Maine where he kept his boyhood home to which he returned each year until recently. In his youth he developed a love and talent for music. Post college, he toured around Europe on a motorcycle collecting a knowledge base of music, including a passion for the songs of Kurt Weil and Bertolt Brecht. Due to his fluency in many languages he was among the first to perform and translate some of their music that would go on to be very popular sung in English.
My father was ultimately drafted and did serve in the Air Force during Korea though mainly “picking up cigarette butts and kitchen duty” as he would tell me. A bout of Tuberculosis allowed him a medical discharge and he returned to Portland to pick up where he left off with music.
He played clubs in and around New England eventually making his way across the US and ultimately settled in New York during the early days of the emerging folk scene in the 1950s with my mother, Dolly (Jonah) Holt. At one point a pre-Dylan Albert Grossman helped navigate his career.
He recorded a number of albums throughout the 1950s and early 60s for labels including Coral, Capitol, Atlantic and Elektra and became well known amongst the folk and emerging West Village bohemian circles. Many of our family friends came from this era and represented actors, comedians, dancers, poets, and musicians. It certainly made for interesting dinner parties when I was growing up.
His songs have been played by artists including The Kingston Trio, Trini Lopez, Bob Marley and Peter Paul and Mary amongst others, most notably “Lemon Tree” which ultimately helped support him over the years.
My bedroom was just next door to my father’s office/study and most days I’d be awoken to the sound of him playing, writing, and singing. Music was near and dear to him and while there was definitely a difference in our tastes, his ultimate passion wore off on me, though certainly not the talent. I could never really learn to play, though I tried a little here and there.
At night, with a few fresh martinis for my mom and dad, we would retire to the same study and perform much as they did in the 1950s, basically for me (and more importantly, themselves). It was somewhat awkward to be the sole patron of essentially a smoky nite club happening next door to my bedroom at the age of 8 but they were in their element, happily performing.
Throughout the 60s and 70s my dad wrote for the theatre, developing a series of shows on and off-Broadway including The Me Nobody Knows which won a number of awards. By 1978 he was working on one of the most expensive shows ever to hit Broadway at the time and it closed on opening night. It was at this point that the music stopped and our lived changed.
My father lost his creative spark and my mother developed cancer and soon passed away. During this time, I had been asked to leave 2 of NYC’s finest schools only to end up in a public middle school on the upper east side that most people who live there wouldn’t know existed. My father had lost his focus and his wife and in this time he and I had drifted apart. I spent much of my teen years alone as our respective survival modes created distance that remained intact for many years.
My father remarried and moved to Los Angeles where he continued to write shows, music, books, tv… though he eventually returned to New York as often people do. I went off to school in Boston and then made my way to Los Angeles to pursue a career in film. My parents advice was always to avoid show business at any costs, and as most rebellious kids, I never listened.
I remained in LA until 2006 when I moved back east with my wife Carrie and our 2 young children and we made a point to try and be active in my Dad’s life. It was a chance to reconnect. He enjoyed being a grandparent and loved my kids very much. It was nice to see this as so much of my youth felt like a not too pleasant blur and the chance to reset has provided my kids with lasting and positive memories.
Over the past few years, as he became more ill, I found myself stepping in to help and ultimately as an only child, I had to take over his health care and planning. I am not sure how prepared you can be to take on the responsibilities to care for a sick parent and I really tried to do the best I could. He had lost touch with his immediate reality, truly believing he was in Maine or had just come from seeing a show all of which only existed in his mind. At first, I would tell him he was in Los Angeles, or in a facility who specialized in care for people like him, but eventually I went with the flow. Feeling he was in Maine or still able to perform, I believe, eased whatever pain or stress he was feeling.
My father had a spark that I admired. One that was creative and inspired. He was sweet and outgoing… Maybe it was the New England in him. He would break into song at any moment. I often saw him sing for dinner guests with the same energy as a concert hall filled with people.
I want to remember and honor my father for who he was, and as I have reflected over the past few days on how best to do this, I realized simply to celebrate and love music. For him a great song was as impactful as a great book or film. Celebrate, enjoy, share. That is his greatest gift to me and one I will continue to pass on in his honor. His music, and all music for that matter.
