Features and Reviews
Joseph F. Lamb: A Biography
By Russell Cassidy
Part V
As for Lamb's own piano playing..."I could play my own rags and others' all right as well as other popular music and a few semi-classics, but I was no wiz. I could not be classed among the players in They All Played Ragtime, even though I was classed among those who wrote it. In those plugging jobs, you must remember, we were plugging only the songs of Helf which, naturally, were played so many times that you played them in your sleep. While I could read music I could never memorize it, unless I played it 100 times or so. I couldn't play by ear unless I heard the piece incessantly. A violinist pal and I formed an orchestra with other music friends. We called it the "Clover Imperials,' and we played at church and lodge dances until I moved to Brooklyn (1911). My writing continued but my playing didn't."
While with the Helf company, Joe saw at firsthand the hectic and, at times, ruthless aspects of the music business and, satisfied that he had seen enough of the business as a profession, returned to the dry goods commission house. "In April of 1914 I answered an ad for an experienced custom house man capable of handling all phases of import work. I asked for twenty-five dollars per week and got it, and was thereby able to move into a better apartment in a better neighborhood. I was the only one in the place who knew 'factoring.' They finance accounts of manufacturers and guarantee their sales and check their credits. I started in that place on April 19, 1914 and it was from the same place I retired in December, 1957."
With this more stable means of a livelihood plus his occasional arranging jobs in the evenings, Joe and his wife were able to settle down to the business of raising a family, and in July, 1915, a son, Joseph F. Lamb, Jr., was born.
In 1916 during World War I, many of Joe's friends had been called to duty, and he felt uneasy about being left behind. His employer persuaded him not to enlist because of his age (29) and his family. Nevertheless, he did enlist in the Cavalry division of the New York State Home Guard in which he never actually mounted a horse.
Joe lost his wife to the flu epidemic which swept the country in 1920, leaving him with four-year-old Joe, Jr. Several years later, Joe was remarried, to Amelia Collins, the sister of a longtime friend.
With the decline of ragtime, the following years were spent in self-imposed obscurity and devotion to his family. The Lambs moved into their new home on East 21st Street in Brooklyn, and in February, 1924, their only daughter, Patricia, was born. Pat was not named for Lamb's 1916 rag, the title for which had been given by John Stark. The Lambs had three more sons: Richard in March, 1926, Robert in November, 1927, and Donald in July, 1930. Of these years, Mrs. Lamb wrote: "Joe's life...was very plain. He never cared for popularity, or let's say notoriety or money as long as people played and liked his music. At night after dinner he used to take the baby into the living room and with his foot rock the bassinet while he played the piano and put the baby to sleep. Later on he would sometimes bring home a batch of new music (professional copies), and after supper, all the children would sit in the living room and listen while Joe played them and we'd all pick which ones we liked best. Joe (continued to make) arrangements for publishers, but he never played in any bands after I married him. Joe and my brother Gus put on a number of (amateur) minstrel shows in our church, and wrote some songs for them, 'The Purple Moon,' 'Here We Are,' and 'Here We Are Again' were some of them. The names of (two of) the shows were 'The Blackberries of 1928' and 'The Blackberries of 1929.' I always enjoyed Joe's playing, whether he was just playing or composing. When the children grew up and got married, Joe would play, and I would read or crochet and that's the way our evenings went."
In the early twenties, Lamb wrote another rag..."The last rag I sent to Stark, 'Chasing the Chippies,' was bought by him but to my knowledge was never published. I considered it one of my best, but for the life of me I can't remember anything but the first two measures." Later in the twenties, Lamb wrote a series of instrumental numbers for Mills Music Company. "All of those—there were fifteen—were written after Stark was gone and at the request of Mills. He bought them all and they would have been published except that they were lost in moving. He was as anxious to have them (published) as I was. He wanted me to write them again. I couldn't even remember them. They weren't actually rags, but Mills termed them 'Instrumental Novelties.'"
Around 1949, new melodies of rags began to flow in Lamb's mind despite the 30 years since his last published rag. Lamb had been out of contact with the music world, and was not aware of the revival of interest in ragtime during the 1940s which had been sparked by Lu Watters and his pianist, Wally Rose, nor was he aware of the efforts of Brun Campbell and others to bring about a recognition of Joplin's genius. The melodies persisted, and Lamb began his second period of composition, fitting the pieces together and molding them into the ragtime format.
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