well hello friends and welcome to
1:42
another Ask Zac
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today we're gonna talk about Cornell
1:47
Dupree got to turn the tremolo off on my
1:50
amp so that don't hear that thump in the
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whole time so just so you know I'm you
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know got my telly and I'm going straight
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into the amp no pickguard going full on
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Dupree so a bit of history Cornell
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Dupree was born in Dallas in December of
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1942 you know of course he you know
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learned how to play the guitar well
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enough that the Great King Curtis Curtis
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Ousley found him and convinced him to
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move to New York and of course he moved
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up there to play with King Curtis and
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the Kingpins and well you know that's a
2:34
it's a great gig and threw that gig
2:39
he played with Bobby Womack some because
2:43
they were both playing with a Sam Cooke
2:45
for a bit I played with Jimi Hendrix for
2:49
a bit you know and yeah I continued to
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play with King Curtis and really got his
2:58
big break when he played on the tune I
3:01
was playing at the beginning of the
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episode a rainy night in Georgia Brook
3:06
Benton's version and of course that's a
3:10
Toni Jo white tune and a quick aside
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being that I'm from Kingsville Texas
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which is near Corpus Christi Toni Jo
3:20
white moved to Kingsville and the early
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1960s and my dad used to go see him play
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live said he was kind of a Elvis
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impersonator at the time and then later
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in the 60s while still living in the
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Kingsville Corpus Christi area he wrote
3:34
rainy night in Georgia
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Polk Salad Annie and some of those other
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tunes that appear on his early albums so
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back to mr. Dupree
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yeah plan on rainy night in Georgia was
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a huge launch for him and so soon he was
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playing on a lot of Atlantic sessions
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King Curtis and the kingpins started
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being Aretha Franklin's road band and
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studio band and you know Jerry Wexler
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very famously said that he loved Cornell
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because he could hire him as the only
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guitar player on the session and have
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both lead and rhythm covered in a lot of
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earlier Atlantic sessions especially
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like if you think about the classic
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Aretha stuff you had two or three guitar
4:24
players on there so you might have
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Jimmie Johnson and Bobby Womack and Joe
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South or you know Chips Moman you know a
4:33
mixture of those guys you know playing
4:35
on things but Wexler loved Dupree's you
4:39
know kind of way that he could weave
4:41
around both playing rhythm and lead and
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fills and such probably my favorite
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besides raining out in Georgia he he
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worked with a Donny Hathaway and they
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did Donny Hathaway live album which I
4:58
love that album and there's a great
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recently they put out a version of that
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that's just the material with with with
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Dupree on it because the original album
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is half Phil Upchurch because part of
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it was cut in LA and part of it was cut
5:20
and both was cut live but Phil Upchurch
5:23
played on the LA stuff and of course
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Cornell played on the New York stuff
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yeah and then you have stuff with Eric
5:31
Gayle and Steve Gadd and Richard T and
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you have in the Joe Cocker things and
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you know all sorts of great stuff
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Cornell was such a part of the New York
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establishment and continued to play in
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the clubs there and
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you know what an amazing player and what
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an influential player so that's kind of
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the the Nikol version of you know of
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Cornell Dupree I'm said that I'd you
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know of course he passed away a number
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of years ago and I never got to you know
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interview him email him or anything like
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that I certainly would have liked to
6:10
have I was you know dependent on you
6:15
know research I want to thank Michael
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Ross my friend and who's a writer for a
6:22
guitar player and premier guitar and he
6:24
has a wonderful article on Cornell
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Dupree in his forgotten heroes series
6:28
and I'm gonna put a link to that in the
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description also there's this great book
6:32
that call rhythm and blues guitar by
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Cornell Dupree also with Dave Rubin and
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this is a great source because he they
6:44
did a good job of telling Cornell Dupree's
6:46
 story and and having a lot of
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great information in that so there's
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that let's talk a bit about his Cornell
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Dupree gear and then we'll talk
6:58
something I will talk some about his
6:59
playing
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so of course early on he played a
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variety of guitarists by the time you
7:06
know he's playing with King Curtis he
7:08
was playing a guild guitar that had
7:10
dearmond pickups and in the rhythm and
7:13
blues guitar book he indicates that King
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Curtis was not happy with his guitar
7:17
tone and he ended up finding his santen
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with a Telecaster and you know he he got
7:26
a telly like this so this is a 1967
7:29
Telecaster and you know from the looks
7:32
of his it's a maple cap neck like mine
7:34
and I've taken the pickguard off in his
7:38
honor and yeah it looks like he had
7:42
either a 67 or 68 tele and this is what
7:44
he used you know unmodified on like
7:48
rainy night in Georgia and you know the
7:51
Aretha stuff
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it seems later on he added a dearmond
7:56
pickup and there was an added little
7:58
plate here
8:00
and the plate had a selector switch to
8:02
turn the pickup off and on and that
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guitar is as far as I can tell it seems
8:10
to be owned by a collector in Japan so
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that's where his original late 60s
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Telecaster is of course after playing
8:19
the telly he played a series of yamaha
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signature models until is until a
8:24
Cornell Dupree is passing the strings he
8:28
used are interesting and and I've gone
8:32
so far as to replicate the the set that
8:35
he used and and but for the time it was
8:41
not unusual so Cornell Dupree used what
8:44
was called Fender rock and roll strings
8:46
so the standard string at that point was
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you know like twelve through fifty
8:51
something and had a wound third or you
8:54
know Ernie Ball started making you know
8:56
strings in 62 and Fender started
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offering a light gauge set that they
9:05
called their rock and roll set and it
9:07
was it was interesting and that's what
9:09
you know Dupree used and so it's ten for
9:14
the high string 13 for the B string 15
9:18
for the g string okay we're gonna talk
9:20
more about that later 26 for the D
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string 32 for the a string and 38 for
9:29
the low E string so now this was the set
9:33
and so this is the set that Jimi Hendrix
9:37
used it's a set that Duane Allman and
9:39
Eric Clapton Roy Buchanan Danny Gatton I
9:43
mean on and on and on this was kind of
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like they easy to get like gauge string
9:49
set it's kind of what everyone used and
9:52
so you have the gauges that are kind of
9:55
wacky by today's standards but they were
9:57
standard at the time then also the
10:00
construction method is different now the
10:01
the unwound strings are the same is what
10:04
we use now but the WAM strings are
10:06
different these are round core which
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means the the core of the string is
10:13
round
10:13
and then it has a solid nickel you know
10:19
wrap on it
10:19
now how that's different is today's
10:21
strings are hex core and they have
10:25
nickel-plated steel so what that means
10:28
is the hex core helps the the wine stay
10:32
on there better and then the
10:34
nickel-plated steel has more output so
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the strings that our hero's used are
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quite different than than what we're
10:43
using now the strings we're using now
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have more bass output they're louder so
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I changed to the set and this is of
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course fenders not making those strings
10:54
anymore this is a recreation made by
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pyramid and I'll put a link to these
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also and they even call it the Jimi
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Hendrix inspired set and again it's ten
11:05
thirteen fifteen twenty six thirty to
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thirty eight so there you have it so
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while we're still on gear of course
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Cornell
11:17
mainly used fender amps I'm sure you
11:20
know New York is kind of known
11:21
especially in the in the 60s and 70s
11:23
there were a lot of ampeg amps at
11:25
studios and I'm sure he probably used
11:27
those also but he was known for using a
11:30
Fender Twin you know live or showman or
11:33
whatever kind of amp there was so now
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let's talk about his playing and since
11:39
we just kind of covered gear let's talk
11:42
about how those strings affected his
11:44
playing well you know of course you have
11:46
kind of a lightish kind of low-end and
11:50
then you have this really you know
11:52
fairly light g-string well if you listen
11:56
to Cornell's
11:57
you know soloing like you'll hear more
11:59
of it like on the the donny hathaway
12:01
live album and you know maybe on some
12:06
other like the Aretha live at the
12:07
Fillmore you hear some of it but you'll
12:11
notice that he will Bend more wildly you
12:14
know on that g-string and you know it's
12:16
pretty obvious that he was you know
12:18
influenced on by Albert King and so
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you'll hear these bins where let's say
12:23
he's playing in the key of a and it's a
12:26
pretty common move
12:27
take that c-note on the g-string and
12:29
bend it up a half step to a c-sharp
12:32
so it's kind of a minor third major
12:34
third Bend but Cornell will bend a lot
12:38
from this C to the D so you get that
12:41
whole step in and he's doing it
12:43
seemingly with his first finger so you
12:45
get this kind of thing so you get so you
12:53
know see you have it or you have these
13:00
kind awful yeah and he would do some
13:15
some double string pins and things like
13:17
that so that's something that was
13:19
influenced by you know the string gauge
13:22
that he was using another thing of
13:24
course you have the you know the the
13:27
kind of double stop things like you know
13:30
like on ring night in Georgia which was
13:33
actually I played it E the originals in
13:35
D so you could
13:42
you know that that kind of thing
13:47
another thing he's kind of really known
13:49
for is playing like these sixth and then
13:52
kind of hitting you know like again
13:54
we'll stay in the key a just to make it
13:55
easy but he would like and then hit the
13:59
tonic so uh so it's a fairly common move
14:10
you know for Mr. Dupree that's a
14:14
that's a great great thing you can also
14:17
you can do it you can do it otherwise
14:19
but you don't you kind of lose that high
14:21
note but it sounds better view and of
14:31
course he did the normal kind of double
14:32
stops things and rhythm and and he was
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kind of known for the Cornell bounce and
14:39
also you know it's funny you know a lot
14:42
of a lot of stuff you know people got
14:45
credit for things they didn't play you
14:47
know and no offense to Cornell Dupree at
14:49
all but he got credit for playing for
14:52
originating the part on you know Memphis
14:55
soul stew well Reggie Young came up with
14:58
that part and I recorded it originally
15:00
but Cornell certainly you know played it
15:03
great and and played a little different
15:05
and of course he had his own kind of
15:06
rhythm thing that he did so you know
15:09
[Music]
15:24
that kind of thing yeah so those are
15:28
just a little bit of Cornell Dupree isms
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also I wanted to talk about one of the
15:38
things I think is real interesting is
15:40
just that nexus of rhythm and blues kind
15:43
of soul guitar players and how you find
15:45
out that they they were all hanging out
15:49
and they were all you know kind of
15:50
rubbing off on each other and in this
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rhythm and blues guitar book that I
15:55
mentioned earlier
15:58
Cornell talks about playing on raining
16:01
on Georgia and saying that the influence
16:03
you know what what influenced him to
16:06
play like that was Curtis Mayfield so
16:09
I've done a couple other you know
16:11
episodes on you know you know kind of
16:14
arm be guitar players like you know
16:17
Bobby Wommack and and Reggie young and
16:19
and I didn't mention Curtis Mayfield and
16:22
I kind of thought well you know he used
16:23
that different you know tuning where is
16:25
f sharp and and you know but no he was a
16:28
huge huge influence and I should have
16:30
mentioned him on other things but so
16:32
yeah so Bobby Womack and Curtis Mayfield
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and you know Cornell Dupree and Jimi
16:39
Hendrix I mean all those guys were
16:40
rubbing off on each other and I guess
16:42
you know really Curtis Mayfield was kind
16:45
of influencing those guys more than he
16:47
was being influenced but yeah Cornell
16:50
gives due credit to Curtis Mayfield for
16:53
for the stuff that he played on rainy
16:55
night in Georgia yeah I just think
16:58
that's really interesting you know again
17:00
you know Cornell Dupree playing with
17:02
Jimi Hendrix Bobby Womack and Cornell
17:06
Dupree playing with Sam Cooke and on and
17:10
on so it's it's a it's a fun thing and I
17:14
love you know you know that kind of soul
17:17
guitar kind of thing
17:19
and yeah so that's kind of my take on
17:24
Cornell Dupree love him love is playing
17:27
I'm going to create a Spotify playlist
17:30
and you know and kind of choose my
17:34
favorite Cornell Dupree things you know
17:36
from through the years I have to admit
17:38
again that Donny Hathaway live album is
17:40
a is a favorite so anyway you know so
17:45
take your pick guard off plug in plug
17:49
straight into your amp you don't need
17:50
any effects of course every once while
17:52
he'd do volume swells with the with the
17:55
volume control and stuff like that but
17:57
yeah enjoy thank you for joining me and
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I hope you have a great week
18:02
Thanks bye bye