Kingpins by James
Marshall Hendrix
1942
December 19,1942, born
Cornell Luther Dupree Jr. in
Fort Worth, Texas
1971
Records Young,
Gifted and Black
with Aretha Franklin,
yielding the hit “Rock
Steady,” in addition
to tracking Herbie
Mann’s Push Push
with Duane Allman
1973
Records There Goes
Rhymin’ Simon with Paul
Simon, yielding the hit single
“Kodachrome”
1962
October 1, 1962,
moves to New York
City to join King
Curtis’ Kingpins.
1965
Plays on the sessions for Wilson
Pickett’s hit “In the
Midnight Hour,” in
addition to opening
for the Beatles at
Shea Stadium with
the Kingpins
1972
Plays on Donny
Hathaway’s classic Live
record recorded at New
York’s Bitter End club
1974
Tracks Joe Cocker’s I
Can Stand a Little Rain,
also records his own
first solo record, Teasin’
played the horn through junior high school,
including in the marching band. But by
then Dupree had started frequenting local
venues where artists including Ray Charles
and B.B. King performed. On one of
these fateful nights, he saw the flamboyant
Johnny “Guitar” Watson at a Masonic Hall.
guitarist Wayne Bennett, as well as Billy
Butler—the man who played the classic
solo on Bill Doggett’s 1956 instrumental hit
“Honky Tonk.” Cornell bought the Doggett
single and learned the solo note-for-note
on his Gibson Les Paul Custom, which he
replaced with a TV-yellow Les Paul Junior
Lightnin’ Hopkins, Fenton Robinson, and
Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, as well as
country stars like Ray Price, Bob Wills, and
Roger Miller. Dupree may have even run
across avant-garde jazz saxophonist Ornette
Coleman, who was also from Fort Worth.
“ . . . every take would start with [Dupree] playing
a completely different, amazing guitar intro.”
—Will Lee, session bassist
Virtually overnight, he was begging his
mother for a 6-string.
Bernice obtained a sunburst Stella
acoustic from a pawnshop, and the
14-year-old Dupree started learning licks
from local pickers. By 1956, he had a
Harmony hollowbody with a DeArmond
pickup and he’d formed a band with a
couple of guitar-playing friends named
Frank Lott and Calvin Love. The three
young musicians played a mostly instrumental repertoire at talent shows and at
local clubs on Sunday afternoons.
Two players whose influence is evi-
dent in Dupree’s style were Bobby Bland’s
when the Custom was lost in a fire.
King Curtis and Jimi Hendrix
In 1959, 17-year-old Dupree married
Erma Kindles. And country star Delbert
McClinton asserts that, by 18—barely out
of high school—Dupree had a reputation as
one of the best blues guitarists in the area.
1961 would be a pivotal year in his career:
While visiting Texas, R&B sax player King
Curtis sat in with Louis Howard & the Red
Hearts at the Paradise Club. Before return-
ing to his home base of New York City,
Curtis told Dupree to keep on practicing
and “one of these days I will send for you.”
True to his word, he called the guitarist
the very next year and had him audition
over the phone by playing Curtis’ then-new
hit “Soul Twist,” as well as the standard
“Moonlight in Vermont.”
Apparently, Dupree had been practicing,
because Curtis promptly sent him a ticket to
New York. On October 1, 1962, Dupree and
Erma arrived in Manhattan, leaving their two
children in the care of Dupree’s mother and
