Classy, understated guitarist, venerated by fellow musicians
For a time in the mid-1960s, the band of the great rhythm and blues tenor saxophonist King Curtis contained two guitarists. The first, Jimi Hendrix, stayed only a short while before going on to worldwide fame. The other, Cornell Dupree, who has died of emphysema aged 68, remained content to stay in the background, nonetheless establishing a reputation among musicians as one of the very finest of his type.
The record producer Jerry Wexler, for whom Dupree worked on several historic sessions with the singer Aretha Franklin, called him "the first guitarist I'd encountered who could simultaneously play rhythm and lead. Until then, we'd required two or three guitarists to handle those diverse functions."
Together with the pianist and organist Richard Tee, the bass guitarist Chuck Rainey and the drummer Bernard "Pretty" Purdie, Dupree could be heard in Franklin's touring band for many years: they were her A-team, which meant they were as good as any R&B/soul musicians on the planet.
Dupree went on to become a much in-demand session musician, contributing to the recordings of a range of artists including Esther Phillips, Joe Cocker, Laura Nyro, Miles Davis, Etta James, Ringo Starr, Mariah Carey, Archie Shepp, Lena Horne and Barbra Streisand. Among the hits on which he played were Curtis's Memphis Soul Stew, Brook Benton's Rainy Night in Georgia and Franklin's Spanish Harl- em and Rock Steady.
In later years, he and Tee joined with the bass guitarist Gordon Edwards, the drummer Steve Gadd and another guitarist, Eric Gale, to form Stuff, an instrumental quintet which made a series of fine albums and found a particularly enthusiastic response in Japan, where their concert tours were frequent and well received.
Dupree was born in Fort Worth, Texas, a city that produced many notable blues and jazz musicians. His first music lessons were on the saxophone, but at the age of 13 he saw a show by Johnny "Guitar" Watson and was impressed enough to make the switch to the instrument of which he would eventually become a master. King Curtis, another native of Fort Worth, invited Dupree to travel to New York and join his band, the King Pins, who were in regular employment in clubs and recording studios, reaping the rewards of such hits as Soul Twist and Soul Serenade. Dupree and his wife Erma made the move, the couple settling into a one-room flat on Central Park South.
His work quickly became known for its combination of unflashy craftsmanship and deep soulfulness. Dupree would never overemphasise, overelaborate, or play a single note that did not contribute to the overall design of the collective musical effort in which he was involved at that moment. This made him an ideal session man, and although his refusal to push himself forward at others' expense denied him the widespread acclaim that his playing warranted, it made him the object of veneration among his fellow musicians.
His playing as a studio accompanist is perfectly represented on Franklin's classic 1973 version of Bobby Womack's I'm in Love, where he slips and slides discreet little bluesy figurations around the voices and horns, his Fender Telecaster adding an indigo tinge to the song's gospel-soul mood. He can also be heard to advantage on Franklin's albums Live at Fillmore West (1971) and Amazing Grace (1972).
The first of Dupree's 11 solo albums, Teasin', was recorded in 1974, and contains a track called Blue Nocturne which enshrines the gifts of a player who specialised in unhurried after-hours music. The format of Stuff allowed him to stretch out to a greater extent, swapping solos with the equally distinguished Gale to good effect, but understatement remained his lifelong preference. Midway through his career he swapped the Telecaster for a similar design created by Yamaha and bearing his signature, while remaining faithful to the classic Fender Twin Reverb amplifier.
He returned to Fort Worth in 2005, continued to play despite his illness, and was scheduled to make another tour of Japan, where he had been making annual visits for a quarter of a century, in August. He is survived by Erma, two sons and a daughter, and nine grandchildren.
? Cornell Luther Dupree, guitarist, born 19 December 1942; died 8 May 2011
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