(The following is from a post that I wrote to the "BluesTalk" messageboard when asked about my father and his background. Strange as it is, I'm proud of my musical heritage that come directly from him.)
He was born in 1920 in the Black Oak, Arkansas vicinity. His family were dirt poor farmers who emigrated over from Ireland. The stories that my Dad told about HIS Dad would make your hair stand on end!
My grandfather - William Lamb - who died LONG before I was born, used to call on spirits and do really strange things. Things that would be considered back country Voodoo kind of things. One time he instructed everyone to go inside and not come out. It was a dark night, and he said he was going to create light. This is before there was electricity where they lived. He and his brother walked in a big circle around the house while calling out these spirits names. After a while of this, he instructed everyone to look out the window. What they saw was millions of tiny lights all over the yard surrounding the whole house. He would also do things like make their heavy dining room table rise and hover through the room.
One time a gentleman came upon my grandfather and told him that he thought his little magic tricks were B.S. My grandfather reached up and knocked the guys Stetson hat down to the ground and told him to pick it up. When the guy picked up the hat, thousands of these strange bugs crawled out of it! The guy threw the hat back down and ran off in a panic. There are other weird stories about my grandfather, but these are what I remember the most. After my Dad's death, my aunt (his sister) confirmed all this to be true. She saw it all as well.
Where my Dad grew up was situated about 50-ish miles from the Memphis area in cotton territory. This was well before radio and TV, so homegrown music was very common for entertainment around those parts. My Dad learned a little fiddle and guitar as a kid. I found out after his death that he'd played guitar in a popular western swing style band in that area - he'd never told me that. His guitar playing was pretty rudimentary as he was mostly a fiddle man.
He told me about a certain wandering black guitarist whose name was Wally Baker who played a guitar instrumental that was titled "Baker Blues" or "Wally Baker Blues" - I've heard it called both by different people. There was also a white guitarist in the area who was considered particularly hot. Apparently, he could play "Wildwood Flower" fingerpicking style, and if you could do that back then - you were hot. Dad said this guy had six fingers on his right hand, and six toes on his right foot. And no, he didn't use the extra finger to pick with. He did say that he was well respected amongst the other musicians in the communtiy. Apparently this guy could REALLY tear it up playing "Bakers Blues".
While my Dad was still a young man he met the great Grand Ole Opry stars Curly Fox and his singing wife Texas Ruby. They were traveling and had a tire blowout, which my Dad helped to fix. Apparently him and Curly became immediate jamming buddies. A friendship that lasted for years - long after I was born. When I was about 8 years old, my Dad took me to visit Curly who, by that time, was elderly and no longer actively playing. Ol' Dad could play Curly's stuff note for note! He had it down!
Sadly, Ruby died in a trailer fire while Curly was onstage giving a performance in 63. It ended his career and he was never the same.
Dad told us so many many stories that I could NEVER remember them all. And he had a way of telling them - the tone of his voice - that had you just on the edge of your seat.
R.I.P Dad - we miss your music and your stories....