Stevie DuPree emerged from rock & roll retirement to play the blues
Interview by Carson James
Stevie DuPree has been singing the blues since 1980 with a band called Cruise Control. If you’ve never heard of them, or DuPree either, you’ve discovered the purpose of this website: To find unknown talents while celebrating the familiar, especially in the world of the blues. DuPree will sting you with two recently released albums – 2007’s Delta Flyer and 2008’s On the Levee Road, the latter credited to his band’s name, the Delta Flyers. Both are superb examples of DuPree’s vintage Delta blues style.
Carson James: You have one album, Delta Flyer, under your own name, and another, On the Levee Road, under the group appellation the Delta Flyers. Did you record both with the same band?
Stevie DuPree: I used the same musicians on both CDs. They are mostly touring musicians from the Austin, Texas area. They are always well prepared for the sessions and may be available for live performances given their schedules.
James: Members of the Rolling Stones are now in their 60s as rock & roll itself continues to age. As an older musician yourself, did you ever imagine a time when we’d see grandparents rocking the stage?
DuPree: Back when I started playing, no one was even thinking about that possibility. But in fact, some of the bluesmen that were so inspirational to the early British performers were close to or already at the grandfather stage when they were playing the U.K. and Europe in the ’60s.
James: Do you feel more creative now than when you did when you were younger?
DuPree: Definitely so. As a young man, I would have to classify myself as being a mental virgin. After 40 years of travels, I now have some tales to tell.
James: Let’s hear your biography. How did you start off as a musician and when did you discover the blues?
DuPree: I was born in Houston, Texas in 1946 into a strong Baptist church environment. I probably heard church choir music before anything else. In the ’50s, when I started to listen to radio, they played every kind of music on the same station. Anything from Brenda Lee to The Ink Spots. I was immediately drawn to the Platters and that R&B style of music. My older brother (10 years older) was a singer and guitar player and was involved in the local music scene. He played with Kenny Rogers early on. Of course, he was my hero, as is the way with younger brothers, and kept my interest in music alive and growing.
In 1964, I joined the U.S. Coast Guard and right out of boot camp, I got stationed in San Francisco. There were no permanent living quarters, so I shared an apartment in an affordable part of the city, The Haight. As I said earlier, being a mental virgin from Houston and being tossed into the San Francisco music scene in 1964 was quite an eye-opener. I was immediately drawn into the culture there and that’s when I had my first exposure to the blues. It didn’t come from my heroes Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. It came at the Fillmore Auditorium when I first saw the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and heard that harp. I was hooked and started off on a mission. I had to find out where Butterfield found out. During that time, I was fortunate to be able to experience many memorable musical performances, culminating with the Monterey Pop Festival in June of 1967. Man, what a trip.
I moved back to Texas in 1980, left the military, and started to write songs in earnest. I formed and played in several local Houston bands throughout the ’70s and early ’80s. They were mostly original folk rock bands. I started play blues for good in 1980 in a trio called Cruise Control. In 1983, due to personality differences (imagine that!), Cruise Control broke up and I quit playing all together. I decided that the three small children that I helped bring into this world needed all of the guidance necessary to become successful adults.
In 2003, almost 30 years to the day, I was sitting in my recliner with a rum drink when a thought came to me. I needed desperately to call up my old songwriting partner. I got up and pulled out a phone book and there he was. Same address and same phone number as in 1983. I called him up and got together two weeks later. We wrote 30 songs in two years and managed to do a successful U.K. tour in 2005. He has since backed away from playing due to his religious beliefs, but I’m still going strong. I’ve recorded four CDs since 2003 with another on the way. I haven’t made much money, but I’ve made an awful lot of people happy. I’ll take the happy now and maybe the money will come later.
James: How much of your life experiences are drawn into your lyrics? Which songs are really personal, in particular?
DuPree: I’ve got a lot of stories to tell. The line of work I’m in has allowed me to travel all over the world and see many interesting things. The business is also filled with an abundance of characters. I’ve used a lot that for subject matter. I encountered the characters in “Three Legged Dog” during my travels. I met the dog on the street in Mumbai, India and the crooked head cat in the Saudi Arabian desert. I also spent some very memorable times in Louisiana, and it can be felt in almost all of my music, for instance, “Pony Dance.” On several songs, I have chosen a subject, such as the joining of the Continental Railroad in 1865 (the subject for the song “10 Pound Hammer”), and used the internet to gather historically correct subject matter. The internet has become a very important tool for me. On earlier CDs, there are personal love songs such as “Your Love Has Brought Me Through” and “The Witness Tree.”
