Lyr Req: Dupree Blues

Subject: Dupree Blues
From: GUEST,Roberto
Date: 21 Nov 00 - 05:47 AM

I'd like to get the lyrics of Willie Walker's version of Betty and Dupree, the one recorded in 1930, under the title "Dupree Blues". Can somebody help? Thank you. Roberto

Subject: Lyr Add: DUPREE BLUES (Willie Walker, Sam Brooks)
From: Stewie
Date: 21 Nov 00 - 09:50 AM

Here you go: DUPREE BLUES

Betty told Dupree, I wants me a diamond ring (oh baby)
Betty told Dupree, I wants me a diamond ring (oh sugar)
Now listen, mama, your daddy bring you most anything

He had to kill a policeman and he wound a detective too (oh sugar)
Killed a detective, wounded a policeman too (oh babe)
See here, mama, what you caused me to do

Hired him a taxi said, Can't you drive me back to Main (say taxi)
Then he hired him a taxi said, Carry me back to Main (oh baby)
I've done a hangin' crime yet I don't never feel ashamed

Standin' there wond'rin' will a matchbox hold my clothes (oh baby)
Standin' there wond'rin' matchbox hold my clothes
Said a trunk was too big to be bothered on the road

Rested poor Dupree, placed him in the jail (oh lord)
Rested poor Dupree, placed him in the jail (oh babe)
He had the mean old judge went and refuse to sign him any bail

Wrote a letter to Betty, and this is the way the letter read (oh baby)
He wrote a letter to Betty, and this is the way the letter read (oh lord)
Come home to daddy, I'm almost dead

Betty went to the jailer cryin', Mister jailer please (oh baby)
Betty went to the jailer cryin', Mister jailer please (oh lord)
Please, mister jailer, let me see my used-to-be

Recorded by Willie Walker and Sam Brooks, Atlanta, Georgia, 6 December 1930. Columbia 14578-D. Transcription from Jeff Todd Titon 'Early Downhome Blues' University of North Carolina Press Second Edition pp 70-71.
PS

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Dupree Blues
From: GUEST,Roberto
Date: 21 Nov 00 - 11:21 AM

Stewie, thank you very much. Roberto

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Dupree Blues
From: GUEST,(Edgar A.)--a.k.a. Art Thieme
Date: 21 Nov 00 - 08:26 PM

The version I recorded is pretty much the way I heard Josh White do it in the late 1950s in Chicago. The information I've picked up over the last 40 years is that Frank Dupree of Abbeville, S. Carolina killed a Georgia patrolman for which he was hanged on September 1, 1922--(Georgia Department of Public Health). Dupree had been trying to rob an Atlanta jewelry store on December 15, 1921. After killing one and wounding others, Dupree escaped and was finally captured in Detroit, Michigan after a chase through several states.

Art Thieme

Subject: Lyr Add: DUPREE BLUES (Kingfish Bill Tomlin)
From: Stewie
Date: 21 Nov 00 - 09:25 PM

My pleasure, Roberto.

Art, in his 'Songsters and Saints: Vocal Traditions on Race Records', Paul Oliver mentions that Walker was greatly admired by Josh White, Rev Gary Davis and Pink Anderson. He gives another interesting version from a more obscure singer - Kingfish Bill Tomlin. On this, Oliver says 'Betty' sounded more like 'Bertie', possibly an abbreviation for 'Albertina'. The song has the same opening stanza as Willie Walker's, but was different thereafter:

I went down Decatur Street, stepped inside a jewelry store (x2)
And a shot from my pistol, I went down there no more

If you didn't want me Bertie, y' had no right to lie(x2)
Cause the day you leave me, I swear that's the day you'll die

She said, Please Mister Dupree, change your name again(x2)
At the end of this you might wind in the pen

He says, That's all right, Bertie, all right the way you do(x2)
It was late last night, y'know when I stole this ring for you

So I'm locked here in jail with my back turned to the wall (x2)
An' you know Miss Bertie that you the cause of it all

Kingfish Bill Tomlin 'Dupree Blues' Paramount 13057. Recorded Grafton, Wisconsin, c November 1930. Transcription from Paul Oliver 'Songsters and Saints' Cambridge University Press pp 253-254.

Cheers, Stewie.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Dupree Blues
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 23 Nov 00 - 12:43 AM

Stewie,

Thank you. That's pretty fascinating. What a tangled web the folk process weaves. I love it.

Cheers back atcha,

Art

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Dupree Blues
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 25 Nov 00 - 08:58 PM

The above lyrics are QUITE different from the song as sung by Dave Van Ronk, I must say.

Dave Oesterreich