This year, Father’s Day coincides with the summer solstice. It also falls shortly after Juneteenth, or Freedom Day. On Spirit Soul Music, airing 6 to 9 a.m. on WRTI, Bobbi I. Booker will lean into the day with songs by the Atlanta Centennial Mass Choir, The Blind Boys of Alabama, and the Rev. C.L. Franklin with his daughter, Aretha. She also had thoughts about the convergence of these three observances, which she’s sharing here.
When I think about Father's Day, I think about music.
Not just the songs themselves, but the men who taught me how to hear them.
Some of them were dads. Others were uncles, neighbors, choir directors, deacons, radio enthusiasts, and self-appointed music historians. They came from different walks of life, but they shared a common belief: music mattered.
There were the men who invested in high-fidelity sound systems and spent hours hovering over speakers and turntables — nudging a needle, tweaking an equalizer, shifting a cabinet an inch, all to get the sound just right. Long before terms like "audiophile" became commonplace, they understood that every recording contained details waiting to be discovered. They taught me that listening was an active pursuit. A bass line wasn't simply background. A harmony wasn't accidental. Every note had a purpose.
For instance, there were the Saturday morning music architects. You knew who they were by the sound coming from the driveway or through an open window. Their soundtrack accompanied housecleaning, yard work, and neighborhood gatherings. Yesterday it was a car stereo; today it might be a Bluetooth speaker. The technology changes, but the ritual remains the same: music setting the rhythm for life.
There were also the men who showed up for choir rehearsal. Not chasing attention, nor asking to be praised — just there, week after week. They pointed the young singers in the right direction, calmed kids who were shaking before a program, and stood beside older voices that carried years of belief and hard-earned life. Plenty of what they did slipped by unnoticed, yet they were the backbone of the musical circles that raised whole generations.
Of course, there were also the romantics, the men who wooed their intended interest by singing along to their favorite songs, usually with more heart than skill. Sometimes (to their ears anyway), they gave the recording artist a run for their money. And those off-key serenades still meant something. They were confidence and tenderness and joy all at once, an example of music doing what it often does best: giving shape to feelings that don’t always come out any other way.
Father’s Day is a reminder that fathers and father figures hand down more than surnames, customs, and advice. They hand down ways of listening. They show us what’s worth noticing, what deserves to stay with us.
For many of us, every favorite song carries an echo of those lessons. And every time the music plays, the men who shared it with us are never very far away.
Bobbi I. Booker is a veteran journalist, broadcaster, and host of Spirit Soul Music on WRTI 90.1. Raised by her single father, Bennie Booker, she learned early that music is meant to be listened to deeply and shared generously.
