This is just. Music so they leave you with. The print song. I remember thinking. We're actually one I would turn to 2000 it seems crazy and far away and here we are 2017 but some of these songs you hear today continue to be. Influential and. And a fixture in our culture of music leaving you here with 1999 from print. To. Let. Live. This is. Just. You're in tune with listeners sponsored. A noncommercial non underwritten community radio station brought to you through the generous support of its listeners k o t o is licensed by the Federal Communications Commission to operate on channel 21991.7 megahertz from Telluride Colorado and on channel 288105 point 5 megahertz from translator k. 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Roughly 10 years ago I was at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation's archive and I was listening to some tapes of Champion Jack to pre at the Music Heritage stage at the noise doesn't Heritage Festival from 1990 and immediately I was intrigued by this guy I had already heard his music but hearing him talk and just the way he felt about returning to the United States we'll get back to that was just amazing so it's like there is a documentary unless there's some sort of story but I could get my hands on the tapes for a number of reasons so I had to shelve this idea fast forward to 2 years ago we start New Orleans calling and that's one of the programs I want to do but now it's a matter of picking up all the pieces of his life and putting them into a program which we're doing for you today this is where my producer David enters comes in so I'm Dave anchors the producer of New Orleans calling with George Meyer and George came to me and said Champion Jack to pre boogie woogie piano player he's this fascinating guy I didn't know anything about him I borrowed some music from George but then I went looking for information and there is no biography I would say the largest biography so far written on him are the liner notes there's really nothing comprehensive and perhaps doing something comprehensive is impossible I'm going to suggest that we try. Mosaic approach let's go to all these different sources that we can discover and see what we can find out about this guy champion Jack to predict and that's what we did essentially over a period of time we hunted down lots of bits and pieces and we had puzzle pieces and we put them together starting off with something recorded in 1964 and sweet. John Q And you acted pretty close at least. Then so George found this tape from 1964 on Swedish radio of Champion Jack to pre speaking with him beyond this legendary Swedish radio host all the hell and are well jagged it's about time for you to take over. To do all the talking. No I don't think you have video partner and then allow me a break in there. Are bands I know like the git in here stand with them then to make the soup and they're not. You know when our when I finally left our friend home I was about 15 years old I was in New Orleans. I used to go around places you know once down around and listen to music so I was very crazy over me. And I heard this fellow play in piano called Drive down and his down I'm like you know these these guy drive them down to you and you always sit around their own talking about you must I mean my character where he helped me when I was out those go he didn't have one room to live in but he made a place for me to sleep on a slope and he was just a matter of father to me he wanted me to learn this business what his real name with their home. Their home. And he wanted me to know in this business. So he told me Say you come and stand in a column about a piano. You see I'm in numbers I'm going as his son not to be in a place with another why that wouldn't be any so I was his son in law to me it was raining and he was a real piano player to go in and grab. Him was he also closing in the sink and blew them train piano and that's where I made that number of to drop down special that's all that question I know I'm all the time in dram down. He's going to your own numbers in his time here. Would you mind letting us use your light here then there are my good friend and. He played it was such a feelin you know everybody all night long a place would be phone people never leave you know. You know that I'm playing music right now. Now I'm going I'm never. I say in town improve my work you want me to do your one. Night now. We're in our time get me. Down now none. Of my credit not your brand I can walk. Down I gave you my money when you could get. Drunk on the town but I remind you. That my. That market. She was seeing out of the thing done up. In a black you know. Some pretty. Budget and I'm going to. Make it out with my. Not good whiskey and I drink a lot of gin. Get drunk I'm trying not to come. Back your. Career. Your imagined something about being an orphan boy can you tell us a bit about your yeah you know you see in childhood Yeah my month in front and by now when I was. One you know see my mother used to run up on loan growth was stolen. The white people got jealous and they set out place to fly one night when they would sleep in a phrase going down. From the bottom and they were driven up stairs and they fell in the fire and burned up I don't know anything about it caught on that was some of the photos and no. One knows the scene of the Gnome myself but I know. You came to an orphanage they were made in their one year old I had sisters and brothers but. Didn't want to be bothered would mean so and they put my system better today same a thing that. John just released. Under didn't want to be bothered with me so it is meant to. This or us this was deep down in New Orleans right down to New Orleans 19919. 12. Where you say I was as good in our friend's home you seem to and I was 18 and I was given the adopted by a very man you know a man who had a mere variant and I stayed when you were now 20 and 10 I was floating in and he died and so may all alone so and I didn't want to go back to the place where. Stone This is when you started meeting in time and I am met Dr Len from. After he did would drown down about 2 or 3 years off and on in an avenue only and then I met Leroy. And I met Big Bill Broonzy and. Rode very own time and Donna Johnson went all the strata help me been caught I don't know it seemed. You were more or less brought up with the Blues brought up in the Med letter blues. Champion Jack to preform 1964 doing an interview with Ali helland or on Swedish radio on. So we went looking for more pieces of the puzzle and one of the places this led us was the Hogan jazz archive at Tulane University where they had a huge file of really old clippings and magazine articles about Champion Jack to pre including a lot of old French and German articles things that you could not just Google and there was all this scattered information about him we had already known he had been a championship boxer before he started his recording career but I found out he'd also been a plant worker a cook a private investigator and an important detail was that he had been drafted into the Navy in World War 2 And he was a Japanese prisoner of war for 2 years and in one place I found he said he had actually written the New Orleans classic junker Blues which is generally credited to his friend driving down the story was just bigger and bigger and it was in all these sometimes contradictory fragments. And then there was this amazing thing that happened to this random thing. The random thing is a magine a document box full of cassette tapes this was actually 9 document boxes Yeah I reach into one of those 9 document boxes and I find a cassette tape that all it says is champion Jack to pre So we listen to this random tape and lo and behold we were able to figure out that it was a recording from 1990 an interview with Champion Jack 2 pretty by an old w w o z show host whose name was ready Teddy the late ready Teddy hanger now a champion Jack to pre and 1990 when he returns to the United States of America to record an album with Rounder Records that's pretty amazing and this tape doesn't have the cleanest sound but he's telling his own story so this is worth listening closely starting off with ready Teddy asking champion Jack to pray about one of his biggest recordings which was walkin the blues with Teddy McRae otherwise known as Mr Bear Now tell me about Mr Bear. With the love in a blue the way I used my foot you know today with him that you know and like that when my foot like that now was getting ready for another Dylan he'd say wait a minute is that. We've got some plywood put nominee. And from my foot action I use my foot they've made it wild in the boot again and over the vein you walk in and believe yeah from what I've put here. Sue me. Champion Jack to pre and Mr Bear doing walk in the blues from 1955 right before that you heard some roll audio from a tape I found that the Late Show host ready Teddy recorded with Champion Jack to pre-warn he was here in 1990 and then on that same tape we found the story in Jack's own words of how Joe Louis got him started on a career in boxing Joe Lewis started me out in the beach but I mean Joe Louis when I went there he was there the fight my spelling. And he and I who pulled in that I had no money and the guys that take it when he will from the south you know that I am and I'm led the way to doing good and I don't know myself yet and I know not in any game and when it out or you got me a room and say you won you can make 20 doubt as you know this boy and what. I mean we bought everything from me and Bill and I went and Jim and I started with him dive and every one of them down about it was great our whip. Whip it went up and now I wasn't fighting. I was fighting but the money is going to live get that and out you know what I would have liked and when it turned out the round and that's what I would fight but I was on the South Pole and there was a menace out for me and I had a manager of. German and ham and some magnetic plate and he if they only think go out and fight right handed. 3 rounds and take 23 another drive and I thought he had made the boughs a better is good enough for me and he had that lead to a you know I'm going to stand right in front of a guy and he did that mean couldn't hit. And so when I got so good at that to. A manager saying you're good enough to ride 6 around. Peter. And now we're Pam and then I'll go. And then when Joe Louis fought my spell them. Out on the 1st time. I was on a round and I won. And when Gillett for the game I was gone for they and your lawyers whip mates BELIN. So that's how we got the name champion Jack Dupree So we're still looking for more pieces of the puzzle and we went looking for musicians who had witnessed his 190-1991 Jazz Fest appearances after he had been gone from the u.s. Since 1958 he came back the very end of his life so I meet up with a dear friend and an amazing piano player Henry Butler to talk about Champion Jack to pre who Henry happened to catch when he was here in the States my name is Henry Butler and I'm here in New Orleans and I mean good time. Another part of his story that I actually know a little bit about is he left the United States at a certain point because of the racism and then he went over to Europe like a lot of jazz players weren't as many blues players but there's that other part the story about him that I keep finding out about yeah he definitely left because of the racism. In the cells and. I hope over the place he again. Was a reflection of a lot of people who did that. I tell you all about my mother. And I got one of them. What about the piano player as a person who not just plays an instrument but is kind of like you hold the attention of the room with stories as as well it seems like that instrument more than most others has this ability to hold court for more than just a tune. Well these guys I mean you know depending on what proportion of his his life would tie. Talking about me he had a lot of experiences under his belt so he could hold court both from a verbal standpoint and from a pianistic standpoint. His music you know wasn't really sophisticated and he was a little bit different he was sometimes. A symmetrical player and sometimes not so symmetrical in that way he was sort of a bridge because many of the country musicians you know country were blues musicians you know they had a thing where they would irregularly make the changes will go from one chord to the next chord READY. John Lee Hooker also was one of those. Irregular guys those guys who changed irregularly and sometimes he was such a cool to. It it was. Just. So it depended on how they were feeling in. All of that. Because it was more about the emotional thing how they were feeling emotional and how life was treating him at the time all of that. My. Speaking of irregular kinds of things you know the original country blues musicians had what we used to call long meter singing and long meter playing and that also happened in the religious Ses of black musical development sometimes you can still go to churches and hear people singing Amazing Grace in the long meter way so that they would they might sing it like. A. Greed is. Mostly the. And if you study music formally you might call that the robot all style but you know in the black community I didn't use those terms so but a lot of the lot of early blues was like that I look out the window. Thinking. That's interesting because I was talking some I want to talk about going from like spiritual music to so-called secular music and one is something you're aspiring to and the other one is singing about an experience in both places there's a yearning there's a yearning there's a as an aspiration there is singing about. And it's not always what you think because most of the blues clear that I've played for and played with. They were happy as they were singing about so many of the sad experiences that they had and you know they were happy to sing about it and it was a great release in a way so. Yeah now you know. I'm in. So there's technique and then there's style technique is something you may be taught but then there's something that people like Champion just to prevent to govern any real formal training but he had a distinct style he had a distinct style and really that's all you needed in those days especially with the blues musician. Talk about junk of Blues for a 2nd just because it seems to be kind of his prototype for so many songs that follow when he did a few versions of that so I'd like to hear them when you've got a cold League club our jungle club. And all the time. told me. Told me. That. This does she told me. Just find out what. You're listening to New Orleans calling and we're here with piano player Henry Butler listening to junker bloops performed by Champion Jack to preach. Actually I think that that was a good recording based on I mean I'm not and I'm thinking about you know my mom used to have that recording and it sort of it wasn't that clear but there for engineering Yeah. There was some irregularity there it certainly at the end just got away from the symmetry just a little bit but yeah yeah let's talk about it's been a long time since her heard it. Down and. Yeah I'm on night and. You know the texture is very thin and that's typical of a lot of his playing he didn't play any little last chords I mean you know most of his chords. Like in his left hand it was was a lot of this is just the tonic in the 5th whether he was on the one of the 4 the 5 and none he accented many times on the one because that's that was really there the way to get. The sensation happening to tone to to to to to to to tune to tune you know and. You know a lot of his tunes were like that. What do you think champion Jack to prease contribution to the music of New Orleans would be if he's obviously pre-book or and you know we can start there. I think you put him in that in the chain I mean he's he's certainly he didn't have a lot of facility and I don't think he was interested in you know a lot of technique. James Booker I think he probably got a lot of his feel from Champion Jack I mean obviously his left hand was more active and and you know a little more prolific. Them champion Jack but and also as I listened to that. And as I reflect on what I've heard from Champion Jack. You know he was more of a shuffle player which eventually led to you know early rock n roll. Back. And in many ways to me ultimately he was a persona he called himself because I'm not a not a musician I'm an entertainer he would say at times yeah yeah and that's that's that's right and I think he understood that there were musicians who had more of a command. On the piano than he ever did have you know or ever would have. So he had to be. More of an entertainer. And he knew it he got it. You're From in the Christian city Welcome back to New Orleans call it. You're listening to part one of a 2 part series on Beryl house Boogie piano player champion Jack to pre one of the most interesting and intriguing piano players to come out of the Crescent City. I'm here with our producer Dave anchors. So putting together the pieces of the puzzle 'd of Champion Jack to preserve life it's led us to the by you St John home of piano player Tom McDermott Hello I'm Tom McDermott I am the Norris pianist composer I'm sitting here in my house at my trusty piano and I have made a specialty really of studying Warren's piano styles and other things. You explain like just what the elements of what will you or to the uninitiated somebody well look he would he is primarily blues bass and it features a repeated pattern that is transposed to depending on which 3 chords you're playing and so. If you're playing a shuffle you know. I'll just play a shuffle and. An f. . Now you're going to be flat playing the exact same thing. To see. So it's the same thing just transposed I mean you can do your own variance but there is I don't know then there must be hundreds or at least dozens of different Booky Wook the basis you know. There's a piece of music of the Champion Jack claim this is own call of the Junkers but we use and I don't really play it but I can sort of hint at it and see. Something like that 8 bar blues very simple very simple but but but it led to a lot of New Orleans music they came after it. Sure absolutely does that that's the thing right there is even if he wasn't like at the top of his game as a piano player he had to he had a large role and the d.n.a. Of music yeah the music of new ones after that point I wanted to make about Champion Jack you know when I think of him I think of the Junkers but we was in the shuffle rhythm which is you know. Which are you records that in 1940 Jelly Roll recorded a tiny bit of stuff like that but primarily not so you might think of changing Jack as the New Orleans beginning of that piano tradition the blues that a par blues or a 12 bar blues that that uses the shuffle and certainly other rhythms that I'm not so familiar with the check in check must deploy and then you know when when you hear about Fats Domino who of course popularity in his popular indoor everybody else he took the Junkers blues and turned it in a fat man with just a few changes but there's a line of piano that's boogie woogie it goes from we can say maybe champion and Jack is the 1st prominent guy and 1st guy and then fests and then on to Booker and then to this day there is like if you point to Orleans piano and you have to be able to play shuffles and you know various Booky Wook he's. Actually he's somebody I'm glad his music is out there he's not vitally important to me but I am totally odd by his story and a lot of what gives the musicians music resonance is the life they lead and he had as astounding one is any New Orleans pianists today to recall. Seminal piece and then you know be a prisoner of war for 2 years in Japan and then be a you know be a championship boxer on top of that and then to go to Europe and become I would say cult figure I would say a star. I got him confess I didn't know. Really any of that until I read up on him recently and I wish I had gotten you know have dinner with him one time that would have been but you know. It happens all the time you just don't know until to really. You know I got here in 84 I didn't know about him before that when did he make his chance fest appearance and found it really it really charming. Piano player Tom McDermott. And speaking of those performances that Tom was just talking about those were the ones I heard on tape many years ago and this is where producer David comes back him meanwhile I was still hunting down more pieces of the puzzle and I was reaching out to record companies that were still putting out songs and repackaged albums and so on of Champion Jack Dupree's recordings over the course of his life trying to find some contact with his estate and most record companies didn't have any contact for him but finally a record label in the Netherlands connected me with an email address for his former manager in Germany at the end of his life her name was Margaret because Sankey and through her we were able to get permission to use these recordings so hear from Jazz Fest 1990 at the Music Heritage stage introduced by the great Allison minor is champion Jack to pre and all of champion Jack's charms interviewed by the one and only Allen Toussaint one of the most important musicians to come out of New Orleans was a man named champion Jack to pray William champion tactic 3. He left New Orleans many many years ago after creating a great impact musically on the city influencing many many people throughout the world his discovery is truly amazing his life history is extraordinary and we're going to let him have a conversation with Allen too soft and tell you a little bit more about himself 1st of all I'd like to introduce you to Allen Toussaint. Of New Orleans music one of the most. Is one of the most important musicians in this century a fantastic composer a great singer and a delightful pianist is going to be having a conversation with Champion Jack please give them both a very warm welcome. I guess you can see you all well you know album by Rep route. You're looking like. I'm glad to see. You I. Look good in that. I don't know. How come I don't buck when you come around. Well. You know that the same don't know me. So now we're going to have a ball here because I haven't been so you young kids and. Which I had believed which I didn't have no other way to do because in my time. 3 years you today and now. Because I know one day they would be free. Thank you yes. And always. 110 and he always used to say. He was he say one day. Would be for. A nice day and one day they would be. Just what he say their freedom would come and not. Everybody wants to be free. Black People use of. Saying free to didn't pay it no mind but now everywhere in the world want to be free that's what they're fighting for now freedom and we got paid for i.q. At the. Bank. I don't even know my play but only oldest thing this is how we used to do it just a number of my games are made Terry. And the man downtown Milan. You know my guess what on me and on the way they climbed the mountain and. They go down back and lug many. Miles going to. Find pony only Be. We do big above the down the. Down to come. And. The movie worry about popping. Back. Now. I want to. Play a number for you people would I like for you to do the me when you know I'm leave and they would and I would like to play this question the way you. You're listening to New Orleans calling right now we're hearing champion Jack to preach on the piano recorded at the Music Heritage stage at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation in 1990 and if you listen closely here you'll notice extra hands on the piano which is interviewer Alan Tucson sneaking up behind Jack to join him. When they get. To see him in.