I Am My Father's Son

Book excerpt: In this deeply moving memoir, one of Canada’s most respected singer-songwriters traces his difficult, often tumultuous relationship with his father. From the time Dan Hill picked up a guitar at age 11, he tried to win the approval of Daniel Hill Sr., a man who has been called Canada’s father of human rights. But Hill Sr. set impossibly high standards for himself and his family, especially for his eldest son, leading to conflict and alienation even as young Dan achieved international fame and success. Through vivid family stories, letters, memories and his own award-winning lyrics, Dan Hill tells the story of two parallel lives—his father’s in mid-20th-century America and his own as a young black man coming of age in suburban Canada—and the stormy but ultimately loving way each of those lives affected the other.