Champion Jack and Blind Owl - Born on The Fourth of July

I'm not sure if I 'd want to be born on a holiday, especially December 25, because you want people to pay attention to you but everyone's concentrating on candy or presents or in this particular case, fireworks. Fortunately for blues fans, July 4th happens to be the birthday of barrelhouse piano "professor" Champion Jack Dupree and Boston's own"Blind Owl" Al Wilson (Other famous Independence Day infants: Meyer Lansky, Steven Foster, P. T. Barnum and Calvin Coolidge).

Champion Jack was born in Louisiana. orphaned at the age of two, self taught pianist whose music encompassed the best foot stomping boogie woogie style. He had a wicked sense of humor as evidenced by my personal favorite - "Everybody's Blues" in which Champion Jack literally dedicates the blues to people in all walks of life from transportation workers - "These blues here/they're for the railroad men/they got a family on both ends/but don't want both ends to meet/you know what I mean" - to the hardcore unemployed - "These blues here/they're for them boys who don't do nothin'/I mean nothin'/sit around all day waitin' on that relief check/cuss the postman out if he ain't got it." During his  Depression era travels as piano player / cook, Dupree met boxer Joe Louis in Detriot, who convinced him to step in the ring; Champion Jack got his nickname by fighting 107 bouts, winning the Golden Gloves. He served as a cook in World War II, captured by the Japanese and held as a prisoner of war for two years. Dupree eventually settled in Germany, still making occasional forays back to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival up until his death in 1992.

Blind Owl Al Wilson was said to be so nearsighted that he laid his guitar on top of the cake at a wedding reception, but that didn't stop his unwavering vision of the blues as the founder of Canned Heat, playing guitar, harmonica and writing most of their songs. Wilson grew up in the Boston metro area, honing his musicianship in the Cambridge coffeehouse circuit. He performed with Canned Heat at both Monterrey Pop in 1967 and Woodstock in 1969, which produced Wilson's biggest "hit" song - "Going Up Country". Blind Owl also wrote the band's other best known song "On The Road Again"; his slightly eerie falsetto can be heard on "Country" as well. Wilson sat in on sessions with Son House and John Lee Hooker, who proclaimed Al "...the greatest harmonica player ever." Despite his exceptional career, Al Wilson ended up joining the so-called "27 Club," dying of an overdose in Topanga Canyon at the age of 27. He remains a significant but cryptic figure in the annals of both 60s rock and traditional blues.

Happy birthday to the Champion and the Blind Owl, gone but no way forgotten.