(HUDSON, N.Y.) – There is a rarefied club in rock ‘n’ roll – call them the crown princes of rock: Jakob Dylan, Sean and Julian Lennon, Dhani Harrison, Zak Starkey, and James McCartney. Depending on your point of view, these are either some of the most unfortunate musicians in the world, destined always to pale in comparison to their fathers, or some of the luckiest, always being able to garner interest of a crowd and publicity beyond what they might have received had they not been sons of the Beatles or Bob Dylan.

As it turns out, most have acquitted themselves well, either through their own measured successes, creative and commercial, such as with Jakob Dylan and the Lennon boys, or by lowering expectations while still coming across as talents in their own right, as with Dhani Harrison and Zak Starkey.

Somehow it seems the one who might have the most difficult job – the most to prove, the hardest legacy to live up to, precisely because his father is so overwhelmingly the Mr Entertainment of the past 50 years – is James McCartney. No one could possibly expect Jakob Dylan or the sons of John Lennon to capture anything like their father’s influence, to say nothing of their talent, but precisely by being something less than an iconoclast and more of a pop star, Paul McCartney may have made it impossible for his son to live up to his legacy.

In any case, audiences are being treated to a chance to take the measure of the singer who bears his father’s real name, James McCartney, this spring, as McCartney fils embarks on a full 50-date solo acoustic tour behind his first full-fledged solo album, Me – which comes out next Tuesday – a tour that brings him to Club Helsinki Hudson on Sunday, May 19, 2013, at 8pm.

Oh, and did we note that dad, and friends-of-dad such as Rolling Stones guitarist Ron Wood, have been showing up at various gigs along the way?