.

Evelyn signed Lester up for piano lessons. The teacher sent him home after a few lessons with a note that said Lester would never learn music and not to send him anymore.

The day he got his first guitar, mail ordered from Sears Roebuck and Co., and accidentally plucked a couple of melodic strings as he pulled it from the box. He remembered his mothers words: "Lester you're great already."

GP: Grandma was a pip, and I think she was the inspiration for Norman Vincent Peale's book

The Power of Positive Thinking.

Les Paul talks about Red Hot Red & Rhubarb Red

Red Hot Red & Rhubarb Red (1922 - 1934)

Around the age of 14, Dad began performing as Red Hot Red, building on his childhood nickname, which was based on his hair color.  He began performing at the local Bar-B-Que stand.  There, a customer made him aware that his guitar could not be heard, which led to the search for the electric guitar.   He soon was appearing on the local radio station WTMJ.  He’d already made his first record-cutting lathe out of an old Cadillac flywheel.  “The first thing recorded on it was me as Red Hot Red singing ‘Don’t Send My Boy To Prison’ on WTMJ,” Dad recalled.  “My mother recorded it for me off the air.  I still have that disc, too!”  Red Hot Red got his first break when guitarist Sunny Joe Wolverton, a regional country star, caught Red’s act, and the following summer, the two formed a duo billed as Sunny Joe and Rhubarb Red.  They toured the Midwest, ultimately landing in Chicago in the early ’30s.  They also made their first recordings, cutting 111 songs on transcription discs for a company headed by Jack Kapp.  The sides have long since been lost.  

Mother Evelyn Polfuss & Lester