Champion Jack Dupree - Biography
BY J Poet
Champion Jack Dupree was one of the greatest barrelhouse and boogie woogie piano players to ever come out of New Orleans. He played piano from an early age and over the years made his living at various times as a boxer (he was briefly the lightweight champ of Indiana, hence his nickname), cook, hustler, card sharp, and piano player. He recorded hundreds of singles and albums under various names including Meat Head Johnson, Lightnin’ Jr. and Brother Blues. Although he only had one hit – “Walking the Blues” a duet with Teddy McRae, was on the R&B charts for 11 weeks in 1955 – he was a prolific composer and one of his songs “Junker’s Blues” was often borrowed by other artists including Professor Longhair who called it “Tipitina,” Fats Domino who changed it to “The Fat Man,” and Lloyd Price who borrowed it for “Lawdy Miss Clawdy.” Dupree never liked the racism of his home country and spent almost 40 years living in Europe, where he was highly regarded. He returned to the US in 1990 to play the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and had a triumphant homecoming. He died at his home in Hanover, Germany in 1992.
Champion Jack Dupree had the kind of live you can’t invent. He was born in New Orleans in 1910 to an African father and an African American/ Cherokee mother. When his parents perished in a fire set by the Ku Klux Klan he landed in the Colored Waifs Home for Boys, where Louis Armstrong once lived. A priest at the home gave Dupree his first piano lessons. At 14 he left the orphanage to live on the street, gambling, hustling and boxing to support himself. He met boogie woogie pianist Tuts Washington and Willie “Drive 'Em Down” Hall who helped him with his technique and showed him how to make a living playing in speakeasies and whorehouses. He was the spy boy for the Yellow Pocahontas tribe of black Mardi Gras Indians and met Roy Byrd (Professor Longhair.) He gave Byrd singing lessons in exchange for piano lessons.
Dupree didn’t like the racism he had to deal with in his hometown. In 1930 he headed to Detroit, Indianapolis and Chicago where we worked odd jobs and met Joe Louis who gave him boxing pointers. Dupree fought 107 times professionally and won the lightweight championship of Indiana, earning the nickname of Champion Jack. He’d supplemented his boxing income by playing at house parties and in 1940 he started playing music full time. In Chicago, Tampa Red introduced him to Lester Melrose, a noted blues producer and A&R man who recorded him for the Okeh label (and claimed writing and publishing rights on many of Dupee’s songs.) Soon after, Dupree got drafted and was sent to the south Pacific. He was captured by the Japanese and sent two years in a POW camp before returning to the US and settling down in New York City.
In New York he began his prolific recording career and made single 78 rpm records for more than 21 labels including Continental, Alert, Apollo, Red Robin, Savoy, King, Gotham, Apex, and Atlantic. He didn’t make much money on individual records, but made up for that with the quantity of his output, turning out hundreds of classic singles. His first album was Champion Jack Dupree (1945 Joe Davis) on four 78s. In 1955 “Walking The Blues” became his only chart single, but around the same time he recorded one of his best albums Blues From the Gutter (1958 Atlantic.) The album was one of the first stereo albums and detailed the darker side of life and included “Junker’s Blues,” “TB Blues,” “Nasty Boogie” and killer renditions of “Stack’o’lee” and “Frankie and Johnnie.” He also cut Two Shades of Blues (1958 King) an LP he shared with Jimmy Rushing.
In the winter of 1958 Dupree left for Europe and stayed there until he died, touring and recording frequently, again for dozens of labels. He also worked on an off as a cook whipping up New Orleans specialties. Notable albums include: Champion of the Blues (1961 Atlantic), The Woman Blues of Champion Jack Dupree (1961 Folkways), Champion Jack Dupree Sings the Blues (1961 King), Natural and Soulful Blues (1962 Atlantic) recorded in London with Alexis Korner on guitar, Cabbage Greens (1963 Okeh), From New Orleans to Chicago (1966 Decca), recorded in London with john Mayall and Eric Clapton, Champion Jack Dupree and his Blues Band (1967 Decca), Scooby Dooby Doo (1969 Blue Horizon), The Heart of the Blues Is Sound (1969 BYG, 1995 Charly) with the Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation, Blues from Montreaux (1972 Atlantic) a live set with King Curtis on sax, The Hamburg Session (1974 Happy Bird), Shakespeare Says (1976 Saravah), Boogie Woogie, Booze And Wild Wild Women (1977 Storyville), Rocking’ the Boogie (1988 Blue Moon), Jubilee Album (1989 Blue Moon), and Champion Jack Dupree Sings Blues Classics (1990 Vagabond).
He returned to the US in 1990 to play the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and had a triumphant homecoming. He was 79 and blew the crowd away with the power of his playing and the virility of his singing. He made three albums after the festival, all strong showcases of his highly energetic and vastly entertaining style. Back Home in New Orleans (1990 Bullseye Blues) a rollicking collection that shows Dupree in top form, For Ever and Ever (1991 Bullseye Blues) and Back Home in New Orleans (1990 Bullseye Blues) and One Last Time (1993 Bullseye Blues) released shortly after he died in 1992. He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1993; the Hall also named Blues From the Gutter one of the all time classic blues albums.
