Champion Jack Dupree

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Champion Jack Dupree
Champion-jack-dupree-img98- small.jpg
Champion Jack Dupree performing at the Dennis Swing Club, Hamburg
Background information
Birth name William Thomas Dupree
Also known as Champion Jack Dupree, Harelip Jack Dupree
Born Disputed
Died January 21, 1992
Hanover, Germany
Genres Blues, boogie woogie
Occupations Pianist
Instruments Piano
Labels Atlantic, Okeh BLUE HORIZON

William Thomas Dupree, best known as Champion Jack Dupree, was an American blues pianist. His birth date is disputed, given as July 4, July 10, and July 23, in the years 1908, 1909, or 1910. He died on January 21, 1992.

Contents

Biography [edit]

Champion Jack Dupree was the embodiment of the New Orleans blues and boogie woogie pianist, a barrelhouse "professor". His father was from the Belgian Congo and his mother was part African American and Cherokee. He was orphaned at the age of two, and sent to the New Orleans Home for Colored Waifs (also the alma mater of Louis Armstrong).

He taught himself piano there and later apprenticed with Tuts Washington and Willie Hall,[1][2] whom he called his 'father' and from whom he learned "Junker's Blues". He was also "spy boy" for the Yellow Pochahantas tribe of Mardi Gras Indians and soon began playing in barrelhouses and other drinking establishments.

He began a life of travelling, living in Chicago, where he worked with Georgia Tom, and in Indianapolis, Indiana where he met Scrapper Blackwell and Leroy Carr. While always playing piano he also worked as a cook. In Detroit, after Joe Louis encouraged him to become a boxer, he fought in 107 bouts, winning Golden Gloves and other championships and picking up the nickname 'Champion Jack', which he used the rest of his life.

He returned to Chicago at the age of 30 and joined a circle of recording artists, including Big Bill Broonzy and Tampa Red, who introduced him to the record producer Lester Melrose, who claimed composer credit and publishing on many of Dupree's songs. Dupree's career was interrupted by military service in World War II. He was a cook in the United States Navy and spent two years as a Japanese prisoner of war.

Afterwards his biggest commercial success was "Walkin' the Blues", which he recorded as a duet with Teddy McRae. This led to several national tours, and eventually to a European tour.

Dupree moved to Europe in 1960, first settling in Switzerland and then Denmark, England, Sweden and, finally, Germany.[3] During the 1970s and 1980s he lived at Ovenden in Halifax, England[4] and a piano used by Dupree was later re-discovered at Calderdale College in Halifax.[5] Dupree continued to record in Europe with Kenn Lending Band, Louisiana Red and Axel Zwingenberger and made many live appearances, still working as a cook specializing in New Orleans cuisine. He returned to the United States from time to time and appeared at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

Dupree died of cancer on January 21, 1992 in Hanover, Germany.

Musical style and output [edit]

Dupree's playing was almost all straight blues and boogie-woogie. He was not a sophisticated musician or singer, but he had a wry and clever way with words: "Mama, move your false teeth, papa wanna scratch your gums." He sometimes sang as if he had a cleft palate and even recorded under the name Harelip Jack Dupree. This was an artistic conceit, as Dupree had excellent, clear articulation, particularly for a blues singer. Dupree would occasionally indulge in a vocalese style of sung word play, similar to Slim Gaillard's "Vout", as in his "Mr. Dupree Blues" included on The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions album.

He sang about life, jail, drinking and drug addiction; although he himself was a light drinker and did not use other drugs. His "Junker's Blues" was also transmogrified by Fats Domino into his first hit, "The Fat Man".[3] Dupree's songs included not only gloomy topics, such as "TB Blues" and "Angola Blues" (about Angola Prison, the infamous Louisiana prison farm), but also cheerful subjects like the "Dupree Shake Dance": "Come on, mama, on your hands and knees, do that shake dance as you please".

On his best known album, Blues from the Gutter for Atlantic, in 1959 he was accompanied on guitar by Larry Dale, whose playing on that record inspired Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones. Dupree was also noted as a raconteur and transformed many of his stories into songs. "Big Leg Emma's" takes its place in the roots of rap music as the rhymed tale of a police raid on a barrelhouse. In later years he recorded with John Mayall, Mick Taylor, Eric Clapton and The Band.[3]

Although Jerry Lee Lewis did not record Dupree's "Shake Baby Shake", the lyrics in his version of "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" - "You can shake it one time for me!" - echo Dupree's song.

Although best known as a singer and pianist in the New Orleans style, Dupree occasionally pursued more musically adventurous projects, including Dupree `n` McPhee, a collaboration with English guitarist Tony McPhee, recorded for Blue Horizon Records.

Quotations [edit]

  • "When you open up a piano, you see freedom. Nobody can play the white keys and don't play the black keys. You got to mix all these keys together to make harmony. And that's what the whole world needs: Harmony."
  • "I'd rather have that piano than a wife. 'Cause that piano ain't goin' to leave me."[3]
  • "Nasty Boogie Woogie" by Jack Dupree
"Mama bought a chicken, she took him for a duck
Laid him on the table with his legs stuck up
Yonder come the children with a spoon and a glass
Catch the gravy droppin' from his yes, yes, yes"
"I know you people, I know you glad you ain't one of me
I know you people glad, I know you glad you white and free
Oh yeah, white and free, oh, what will, what will become of me?
Oh I am begging, yes, I'm begging to be free"
  • "[I] found England was a heavenly place for me. I don't care who else find it difficult, but to me it's heaven. When you leave from slavery and go into a place where you're free... I couldn't go back there, because anybody that spit on me, I'd kill them."[6]

Discography [edit]

78s [edit]

  • Warehouse Man Blues (1940, Okeh 05656)
  • Black Woman Swing (1940, OKeh 05713)

Albums [edit]

  • Blues from the Gutter (1958, Atlantic SD-8019)
  • The Women Blues of Champion Jack Dupree (1961 Folkways Records FS 3825)[7]
  • Americans in Europe Vol. 2 (Impulse!, 1963)
  • Cabbage Greens (1963, Okeh OKM 12103)
  • Champion Of The Blues (1963, Atlantic SD-8056)
  • Champion Jack Dupree and his Blues Band; featuring Mickey Baker, (1967, Decca SKL 4871)
  • When You Feel The Feeling You Was Feeling (1968, Blues Horizon ([CBS])
  • The Incredible... Champion Jack Dupree (1970, Sonet SNTF 614)
  • King Curtis & Champion Jack Dupree - Blues at Montreux (1973, Atlantic CD 81389-2)
  • Forever And Ever (1991, Bullseye Blues/Rounder Records CD BB-9512)
  • Champion Jack Dupree Archive of Folk Music, Everest Records FS-217 (no date)

References [edit]

  1. ^ Lichtenstein, Grace and Dankner, Laura Musical gumbo: the music of New Orleans W.W. Norton, 1993 ISBN 0-393-03468-2, ISBN 978-0-393-03468-4 at Google Books
  2. ^ Broven, John Rhythm & blues in New Orleans Pelican Publishing Company, 1983 ISBN 0-88289-433-1, ISBN 978-0-88289-433-1 at Google Books
  3. ^ a b c d Russell, Tony (1997). The Blues - From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray. Dubai: Carlton Books Limited. pp. 107–108. ISBN 1-85868-255-X. 
  4. ^ http://www.smalltownsaturdaynight.co.uk Small Town Saturday Night
  5. ^ [www.sounduk.net/file.php?fid=7 "Matthew Bourne presents Songs from a Lost Piano" at sounduk.net]
  6. ^ Blues Britannia: Can Blue Men Sing the Whites? BBC Four, 2009.
  7. ^ http://www.folkways.si.edu/champion-jack-dupree/the-women-blues-of/music/album/smithsonian

External links [edit]

Authority control
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