Tuesday, or “Tumbleweed Tuesday,” will see the final summer of 2026 concert at Main Beach in East Hampton Village, and the featured artist comes with a surprising and diverse curriculum vitae.
For how many performers at the popular concerts have played with Kenny Loggins, Keb’ Mo’, Phil Lesh, David Crosby, George Clinton, Jeff Bridges, and Jason Mraz? Or had clients including Beyonce, Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Alanis Morissette, Herbie Hancock, Seal, Boyz II Men, Will Smith, and the Black Eyed Peas? Or sang at President Biden’s inauguration, or were appointed by President Obama to the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities? Or jammed on “Light My Fire” with Robby Krieger of the Doors, 50 years to the day after it went to number one?
Tuesday’s performer may also be the first at Main Beach to have been featured in The New York Times for a song he composed to perform at his daughter’s wedding.
For Fred Goldring, such situations are the norm, despite being “almost unbelievable, when I think about how lucky I was,” he said last week.
After 31 years in Los Angeles, the Philadelphia native and his wife moved to East Hampton during the Covid-19 pandemic. “Both our daughters grew up here, went to college and camp back here, and spent the summers in the Hamptons,” he said. As for music, “I have been playing since I was 10 or 11, and playing in bands since I was like 12.”
His parents steered him first to piano, and then to classical guitar, “so I just closed the door and would pick songs off of the records, painstakingly for hours and hours, and taught myself how to play. I wanted to play songs that I liked. That’s true today.”
At Duke University, he led the concert committee, producing a legendary 1978 concert by the Grateful Dead that 46 years later was issued as the “Duke ‘78” album, as well as performances by Earth, Wind & Fire, Bruce Springsteen, and the Allman Brothers Band. “It was like going to school to learn how to be in the music business and see your musical heroes up close,” he recalled. “Then I seriously thought about going into music, and my mother looked at me and said I could do whatever I wanted — after I finished law or med school.”
It was sound advice, he said. “I’m sure if I was just a musician, I would have had a much different life. And as a result of becoming a lawyer, I got to play with so many of my musical heroes that I wouldn’t have, because they would humor me and allow me to pick up a guitar and play with them. Then they realized I could actually play, but the bar was set so low because I was looked at as a lawyer, not as a musician.”
Life as a leading entertainment lawyer specializing in music “has been a way to marry all of the things that I love — to be around people I admire and, in some cases, have an important part in their careers.”
Goldring met Obama during his chairmanship of the nonprofit Rock the Vote, when the former president was a candidate for the United States Senate. “I’d never really supported a candidate before,” he said. “I was just about getting kids civically minded and voting and activated, which is really the mandate. But when I met him, I realized that this was a guy who is doing this at the right time with the right mind-set.”
When Obama ran for president, “I had this idea that music had never been used effectively in political campaigns.” He persuaded a client, will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas, to write a song. “I kind of guerilla-managed the whole thing, and actually ended up playing guitar.” The video for “Yes We Can” was among the first and most influential viral political videos, and after Obama’s inauguration Goldring was appointed to the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.
After “In Performance at the White House: Red, White and Blues” in 2012, Goldring made the front page of The New York Times. “I’m standing in the back holding up my camera recording Obama singing ‘Sweet Home Chicago,’ ” he said, describing “another example of how I do whatever I’m doing and involve music in a creative way.”
It was another feature in The Times, however, that is even more meaningful to the musician. “Tops on the Wedding Playlist? An Original Song by Dad,” published in December 2018, details Goldring’s performance of his composition “On Your Wedding Day” at his daughter Jenna’s wedding. There was not a dry eye at the Hotel Bel-Air, all involved attest.
It was a full-circle moment for Goldring as well. Decades earlier, he had taken up the guitar after hearing James Taylor’s “Sweet Baby James,” which was produced by Peter Asher, and at 13 he saw Taylor in concert backed by musicians including the bassist Leland Sklar and the drummer Russ Kunkel. Fast-forward to 2018, and “On Your Wedding Day” was recorded in Jackson Browne’s Los Angeles studio, Asher serving as producer, Sklar and Kunkel on bass and drums.
“The whole time I’m thinking, ‘If I could have told that 13-year-old kid that I’d be doing that one day, my mind would’ve been blown,’ ” he said. “It’s just crazy how life is, and how fortunate I’ve been to be in these situations.”
On the South Fork, “there’s an incredible community of great musicians,” Goldring enthused. As it happened, Dan Ehrlich, a bassist with whom he had played in Los Angeles, returned ahead of him. “When I moved back, we got together and started to meet new people. We put a band together. Obviously big names live here, too, but the local music scene is really vibrant with great players, and they’re all great people. I’ve made a lot of new friends.”
Hence Fred Goldring and Friends, which on Tuesday will include the guitarists Peter (Bosco) Michne and Gus Fafalios, Mike Katzman on keyboards, and Peter Lazos on drums. “I like to say we’re a singer-songwriter band that thinks it’s a rock band sometimes,” Goldring said. “Even though I’m fronting it and do most of the lead vocals, it’s not like I have a backing band. I really like these guys to step out and do their thing and shine — that’s what really makes it a band.”
“The through line is we like to have fun,” he said. “We take the music seriously, but I don’t take myself seriously. I don’t do it for a living, I do it for pure passion, enjoyment, and it’s an outlet and a wonderful thing to keep you in touch with life.”
The final Tuesdays at Main Beach concert starts at 6 p.m. It is free and open to the public, and parking is free after 5 p.m.
