Todd Kolod, the guitar and vocal genius behind the rarely heard, yet sorely missed groups Daddy-Doo Band and JustFolk, is thinking about hanging it up. Matter of fact, if you listen to him, he already has. Retired may or may not be the word he chooses to use. Either way, he claims he’s done, out the game, and out to pasture after banging out 70 songs in his 70 years of life.

Somebody, please, stop something. Get on the phone. Jump on your email accounts. Hit him up on Bandcamp, or any other platform blessed enough to have any of his music, let alone that from JustFolk. The message is clear, Todd. The people, if it’s only through the words of one reviewer fortunate enough to have perused the anthologies of both bands, have spoken. Ask Dawn Robinsion of En Vogue. Don’t go.

In fact, you can’t. Who else is going to put together those melodies that grace the empyrean with their wonder and aspirations, fluttering through wings of sounds and dimensions without thought? Who else can assemble those song structures, meandering passages, and rising actions of harmony and melody? Who possibly else can do what you do, to say nothing of that which you’ve already done and, most importantly, whatsoever will happen to the world without it?

Kindled by what Kolod called his “naïve spark with delusions of grandeur”, he’s been in the game (notice the cleverly concealed present tense) well, well beyond multiple decades. But the humility of the man, perhaps which has guided his present career trajectory, if not ended it, is as apparent as his prolificacy with the pen, pad, microphone, and vocal booth, most impressively.

“JustFolk’s run was from 2012-2025,” Kolod maintained. “In reality, it was simply a continuation of my songwriting from my first band, Daddy-Doo Band. Daddy-Doo cranked out tunes from 2003-2009.”

He pauses, perhaps flashing back to another time or two.
“The songs just came to me, one after another. I didn’t over analyze or fuss.”
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Time switch: the early 1970’s are back, big time. Bellbottoms are in, blossoming and flowing out everywhere at the ankles. The days are long and sunny, the Vietnam War is enduring, and popular music has reached that critical juncture in which the acoustics that still managed to prevail throughout the 1960’s are inexorably caving into the electricity of amplifiers, and highly charged instrumental expressions, that will dominate heretofore.

As for Kolod? He’s just a simple adolescent, immersed—as an adoring fan— in the concoctions of Neil Young (“After the Goldrush”), Elton John (“Sweet Baby James”), and Cat Stevens (“Tea For Tillerman”). All is well, perhaps even a little predictable, until someone, somewhere, gave the stripling a guitar.

Care to guess the rest?

“My mother had a live-in boyfriend who was three years older than me,” Kolod recalled. “His stage name was Pepe Madrid, Jr. His father, Pepe Madrid, was a well known flamenco recording artist in Ibiza, Spain. He gave me my first guitar: classical. I quickly learned a handful of chords. And then I made the mistake of my life. I told a guest at our house, ‘Can you show me something I don’t already know?’ The young man, around age 30, proceeded to rip me to shreds with complete humiliation over this ridiculously cocky remark. He asked me what scales I knew. Of course, the answer was zero. The man’s name was Alan Montoya, son of the world famous flamenco guitarist Carlos Montoya.”

Kolod pauses again, this time for effect, a wry grin slowly overspreading his face. The denouement is coming up, and by the gleam in his eyes it’s sure to be a doozy.

“My hunch is that Alan was reenacting some of his musical pain regarding his relationship with his father.”
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If anyone has earned the right to a peaceful retirement after advancing the very art and discipline of music as Kolod has, it’s him. He’s a father of two, including the electric music producer MonkeyRascal. He’s been married three times. He’s already retired as a schoolteacher and presently spends a fair amount of time providing humanitarian aid and support for the military in Ukraine.

Moreover, if anyone wants to relive his exploits and career highs with Daddy-Doo Band and JustFolk, they can readily grab a hold of the band’s anthologies. But that nagging, burning question persists, and it’s one that Kolod is going to have to answer one of these days.

What will happen to the world without more of his music?

The answer is far from simple.

“I still have the same guitar I bought in 1977, a Kizan GF-240,” Kolod began. “I couldn’t afford a Martin guitar at age 22, so I bought a Japanese copy of a Martin D-41. These guitars are often referred to as “lawsuit” guitars as Martin threatened to take legal action. I am having the fretboard restored as we speak. It will be ready in a week. I plan to continue noodling every day.”

After that, anyone’s guess is as good as his.