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to no avail, not that it seemed to concern Willie too much. His hearing, touch and
memory were developed to a high degree, to the extent that he would travel long
distances alone, guide people through the streets of Atlanta, and even travelled the

New York subway system without a problem.

His wife said “he felt like he could see in his world just like we could in our world”,
and his cousin Horace McTear stated that he was ‘ear sighted’, and said he would

turn his head and make a clicking sound with his tongue in order to hear the
reverberation of the sound to determine the location of people and objects near to
him.

Around 1907 Willie and his mother (without his father) moved to the small town
of Stapleton, about 75 miles southeast of Statesboro, living in a small shack near the

railroad. Eventually Minnie found work as a cook for the owners of a local pharmacy,
who also provided a modest house with the job.

Willie was a sociable and intelligent child, who was encouraged

to take education seriously. He made many friends there, and
throughout his life would refer to Stapleton as his home,
returning many times for visits. For some reason he was
known as Doog (or Doogie), not just locally, but also back

in Thomson, where his Father still lived.

Minnie married again, to a man called Owens, and had

another son, Robert, who was 19 years younger than
Willie, but in 1920 she died, and Robert’s father took him to
be raised by his family in Statesboro. Willie returned to Thomson.

In spite of the age difference, and distance between them, Willie and Robert shared
a lifetime of kinship, with Willie frequently visiting him.

Willie McTell had, unsurprisingly, shown an early interest in music, dabbling with
the harmonica and accordion, but eventually settling on the 6 string guitar. Although,
most, if not all, of his recordings were made on a 12 string, Willie always kept a 6

string, and played it often.

Used to travelling as a result of his boyhood visits to his father, as a teenager Willie
soon began performing in travelling shows, at least until, as he put it in a 1956

interview, “I began to get grown”. Blues researcher Sam Charters reported that Willie
returned to his mother’s home around 1917/18 to help look after his baby brother,
although he seems to have continued to perform around the Statesboro area. After
the death of his mother he moved around Georgia performing, and even ran an illegal

whisky still for a while!

In 1922, as a result of the philanthropy of a local self made man, Willie enrolled in

the state school for the blind, in Macon, GA, (Full title The Georgia Academy for the
Blind (GAB), (Ed)) where he learned such skills as clay modelling, broom making,