Son Tidwell

Son Tidwell, also called Reginald, is the guitarist associated with Sara Tidwell and the Red-Tops. Though the account offers only glimpses of him, his playing and the uncertain family ties surrounding him connect the band’s music to a largely unrecovered personal history.

Identity and Musical Role

Son is identified as the Red-Tops’ guitar player. In a musical passage associated with Sara and the band, he takes a solo described as his characteristic chickenscratch playing. The detail makes his musicianship distinctive even though the narrative provides no fuller account of his life or the course of his career.

Family and Uncertain History

A history of the Red-Tops’ time in the TR says that a boy died of blood-poisoning after a wound from a trap-hold and identifies him as Son’s only child. The boy is not named in that account. It also says Son’s real name was Reginald and that the Tidwells had supposedly drifted north from Storyville, the New Orleans district known for its brothels and clubs around the turn of the century.

Connection to Sara Tidwell

A photograph of Sara and other Black people, possibly taken at the Fryeburg Fair in 1900, prompts speculation about the relationship between Sara and Son. Their eyes appear to share a similar smile, leading the narrator to consider that they may have been brother and sister rather than husband and wife. The photograph does not establish their relationship, and the account leaves the question unresolved; likewise, it does not determine whether the boy identified as Son’s child was Sara’s child too.