Champion Jack Dupree

小简介
Champion Jack Dupree - 1909年7月23日出生于美国纽奥良，1992年1月21日去世于德国的汉诺威市。为一蓝调钢琴大师。
Champion Jack Dupree 的一生是充满着传奇的色彩。这位曾在二次大战期间沦为日本战俘二年的蓝调大师，他的父母在他年幼时于一次火灾中不幸丧生。根据他早期的说法指出这是出自于三K党的恶意纵火，不过他在日后对这起事件的发生改变了说法，仅表示这起火灾纯粹为一意外事件。Champion Jack Dupree 自幼于孤儿院成长，在1935年前他曾是一名职业拳击手，并且有超过一百场以上的比赛经验。之后他放弃了拳击手生涯来到芝加哥，实现了他在音乐上的理想。
1940 年 Champion Jack Dupree 于芝加哥展露头角。他的音乐除了精湛的即兴钢琴演奏，歌声中也充分的展现了美国南方乡村的淳朴与热情。或许自知生命将至尽头，Champion Jack Dupree 在1992年过世之前，曾在1990年回到家乡纽澳良居住了一段时间。这一次的返乡与他前一次的离开家乡，期间足足相隔了三十六年。Champion Jack Dupree 最后的客死异乡，或许是他这一生之中，最后的一个遗憾吧！
A formidable contender in the ring before he shifted his focus to pounding the piano instead, Champion Jack Dupree often injected his lyrics with a rowdy sense of down-home humor. But there was nothing lighthearted about his rock-solid way with a boogie; when he shouted Shake Baby Shake, the entire room had no choice but to acquiesce.
Dupree was notoriously vague about his beginnings, claiming in some interviews that his parents died in a fire set by the Ku Klux Klan, at other times saying that the blaze was accidental. Whatever the circumstances of the tragic conflagration, Dupree grew up in New Orleans Colored Waifs Home for Boys (Louis Armstrong also spent his formative years there). Learning his trade from barrelhouse 88s ace Willie Drive em Down Hall, Dupree left the Crescent City in 1930 for Chicago and then Detroit. By 1935, he was boxing professionally in Indianapolis, battling in an estimated 107 bouts.
In 1940, Dupree made his recording debut for Chicago A&R man extraordinaire Lester Melrose and OKeh Records. Duprees 1940-1941 output for the Columbia subsidiary exhibited a strong New Orleans tinge despite the Chicago surroundings; his driving Junkers Blues was later cleaned up as Fats Dominos 1949 debut, The Fat Man. After a stretch in the Navy during World War II (he was a Japanese P.O.W. for two years), Dupree decided tickling the 88s beat pugilism any old day. He spent most of his time in New York and quickly became a prolific recording artist, cutting for Continental, Joe Davis, , Apollo, and Red Robin (where he cut a blasting Shim Sham Shimmy in 1953), often in the company of Brownie McGhee. Contracts meant little; Dupree masqueraded as Brother Blues on Abbey, Lightnin Jr. on Empire, and the truly imaginative Meat Head Johnson for Gotham and Apex.
King Records corralled Dupree in 1953 and held onto him through 1955 (the year he enjoyed his only R&B chart hit, the relaxed Walking the Blues.) Duprees King output rates with his very best; the romping Mail Order Woman, Let the Doorbell Ring, and Big Leg Emmas contrasting with the rural Me and My Mule (Duprees vocal on the latter emphasizing a harelip speech impediment for politically incorrect pseudo-comic effect).
After a year on RCAs Groove and Vik subsidiaries, Dupree made a masterpiece LP for Atlantic. 1958s Blues From the Gutter is a magnificent testament to Duprees barrelhouse background, boasting marvelous readings of Stack-O-Lee, Junkers Blues, and Frankie & Johnny beside the risqué Nasty Boogie. Dupree was one of the first bluesmen to leave his native country for a less racially polarized European existence in 1959. He lived in a variety of countries overseas, continuing to record prolifically for Storyville, British Decca (with John Mayall and Eric Clapton lending a hand at a 1966 date), and many other firms.
Perhaps sensing his own mortality, Dupree returned to New Orleans in 1990 for his first visit in 36 years. While there, he played the Jazz & Heritage Festival and laid down a zesty album for Bullseye Blues, Back Home in New Orleans. Two more albums of new material were captured by the company the next year prior to the pianists death in January of 1992. Jack Dupree was a champ to the very end.