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Born and raised in New Orleans, Dupree was a popular recording artist as early as 1940, eventually making hundreds of records for Okeh, King, Atlantic and other labels. Dupree left New Orleans in 1954, but he returned in 1990, at age 79, to play the Jazz and Heritage Festival and to record this album. Some tracks are just Dupree and his longtime guitarist Kenn Lending; the rest include a crack New Orleans band including guitarist Wayne Bennett, trumpeter Teddy Riley, bassist Walter Payton Jr., and tenor saxman Alvin "Red" Tyler. This session was made during Dupree's long, long overdue return visit to his first blues turf. The seventy-nine-year-old Hamburg resident's fingers no longer drive the piano keys and his voice doesn't resonate as in years past, but the feeling is there in spades. His sincerity envelops songs about alcohol, paramours, life's downside, universal brotherhood-his words never come forth smug or perfunctory. Respectful New Orleans musicians aid and abet him on four tracks, with only Swedish guitarist Kenn Lending helping on the remaining half dozen. -- © Frank John Hadley 1993
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