Page 18 - BiTS_08_AUGUST_2021

Blues Boys A Long Way From Home

By
Jim Simpson
Extracted from Henry's Bluesletter #61 with permission

A remarkable number of important Black American bluesmen, as well as jazz musicians, singers
and dancers, left the U.S. and made their home in Europe, most of them staying for the rest of their

lives. Memphis Slim, Mickey Baker and Willie Mabon graced the city of Paris for many a year.
Howard McCrary chose Birmingham, albeit it for a far-too-brief 18 months, and Little Willie
Littlefield made Holland his home, as did former Jelly Roll Morton, Earl Hines and Tommy Dorsey
drummer, Chicagoan Wallace Bishop. But they were not alone...

CHAMPION JACK DUPREE

I first met Champion Jack Dupree
around 1964 when I put on what I
laughingly called a Blues Festival
with him, Buddy Guy and The Lone
Cat Jesse Fuller at Birmingham’s
College of Advanced Technology,
now Aston University. I couldn’t

quite understand why this
legendary two-fisted blues and
boogie piano giant lived in Halifax.

He explained in a BBC Radio 4
interview, “I was tired of living in
America. I came to England and

met my wife. She’s English, this is
her home, so this is my home and I
enjoy it. Now I’m English too
that’s why I love this place.”

William Thomas Dupree was born in Irish Channel, New Orleans, probably in 1910. His father was
from the Belgian Congo, his mother part-Cherokee, part African American. Those early years are a

little misty.

Some records say that he was orphaned at the age of eight, others, including Jack himself, say that
his parents died in a fire at their home, murdered by the Ku Klux Klan. What is for sure is that as a
child he spent many years in the very same Colored Waifs Home in New Orleans that at the same
time housed Louis Armstrong. Jack learned piano from Willie Hall, who was known as Drive ‘Em
Down and who Jack called Father.

He left the home at the age of 14, starting playing and singing in barrelhouses as well as working
as a Spy Boy—does anyone know exactly what this was?—for the Yellow Pocahontas tribe of Mardi
Gras Indians.