There are two well known musicians in Cajun music named Ambrose (or in French, Ambroise) Thibodeaux, both white. Ambrose Thibodeaux the accordion player who recorded for La Louisianne Records. And Ambrose (real name Andrus) Thibodeaux, the fiddle player for Happy Fats after the Doc Guidry era.

Ambrose Sam was a black, Creole accordion player. Whether his real last name was actually Thibodeaux, I don't know. Sam is a last name of many families in Louisiana, so it may be his real last name. This is a picture of Ambrose Sam: http://www.frenchcreoles.com/MusicEvents/other%20zydeco%20notables/ambrose%20sam.jpg

In any case, Ambrose Sam is not the same as the person I photographed at the Festivals de Musique Cadien in 1977: http://npmusic.org/Ambrose_Thibodeaux_1977.jpg This is the accordion player who recorded for La Louisianne.

This picture shows Ambrose Thibodeaux the fiddler between Alex Broussard and Happy Fats. http://www.flickr.com/photos/npomea/5978187486/

The article is conflating two different accordionits who share first names and who have both died. Ambrose Sam was a creole accordionist while Ambrose Thibodeaux was cajun. There is sometimes further confusion between Ambrose Thibodeaux who played accordion and Ambrose Thibodeaux, also known as Nonc Ambrose, who played fiddle with Happy Fats.

that bio, or versions of it, are all over the internet. evidently a lot of cutting and pasting going on from an unqualified source.

I do oil & gas leasing for a living and I had the opportunity to meet many of the surviving members of the Sam family who own a little bit of property about 2 to 2.5 miles east of "downtown" Lawtell. I was able to meet some of the Sam Brothers 5 as well as others, and not only that, but a few of the elderly folks in the area would tell me stories about house dances and such back in the day and they would all say how the Sam family were the go-to musicians for the area at that time. And being that I ran much of the title for the various tracts of land owned out there and personally meet with them, I can confirm that this is a black, creole family and that the name "Sam" was indeed the family surname, not a nick name or anything like that.