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Dupree moved up to Chicago, then Indianapolis playing with Scrapper Blackwell and Leroy Carr,

doubling up by working as a cook. Moving to Detroit, he met up with the most famous boxer of that
era, The Brown Bomber, Joe Louis, who inspired him to take up boxing as a professional. In the
years 1932 to 1940, Jack went on to fight 107 bouts, winning a bunch of other prizes including a
Golden Gloves and acquiring his soubriquet, “Champion”.

By the time he was 30 he was back in Chicago, working with Tampa Red and Big Bill Broonzy and
recording for Lester Melrose, who of course appropriated many of Jack's song copyrights. Along

came World War II, Jack joined the U.S. Navy, served from 1941 to 1945 in the Pacific as a cook,
was captured by the Japanese and spent two years in a prisoner of war camp.

Post-war, he enjoyed a commercial success with his “Walkin’ the Blues” which led to better gigs, a
European tour and a 1959 performance at London School of Economics with Alexis Korner.

The following year Jack upped sticks, settling first in Zurich, Switzerland, before making his home
in West Yorkshire where he married a girl from Halifax, Shirley Ann Harrison, whom he had met
in London.

When Henry’s Blueshouse opened in 1968, unsurprisingly, the name Champion Jack Dupree was
one of the first on the datesheet, and apart from Black Sabbath, he probably clocked up the

greatest number of appearances there. Those that remember the early Henry’s will know that
most of the audience simply sat on the floor and probably chuckle at the memory that every time
anyone got up to go get a drink, Jack would stop mid-song and call out, “Mine’s a pint of lager.”

Sadly, he and Shirley divorced in 1976 and he moved to Copenhagen, then Zurich and finally
Hanover where he died of cancer aged 81 in 1992. As well as his fine singing and piano-playing,
Jack was a terrific entertainer – and also a dancer. He sometimes recorded as Harelip Jack Dupree

and he also worked occasionally as Meathead Jones.

CURTIS JONES

Early in the 1970s, pianist/singer Curtis Jones was set to appear at Henry’s Blueshouse. We were
all agog with excitement at the
prospect of seeing and listening to

this enigmatic blues legend close
up.

Our only previous experience of
hearing him live was on the
Lippmann and Rau American Folk
Blues Festival of 1968 which was

filmed by the BBC—I hope that is
still safe in the archive. On the
afternoon of the scheduled gig,
Curtis phoned me, sounding
relaxed and ready to chat.

I asked where he was, and he told

me cheerily, that he was in
Houston, which completely floored
me. I was beginning to get accustomed to the often eccentric behaviour of some of the bluesmen,