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| Quite possibly wishing he was elsewhere. |
Hold on. Putting on my sailing cap…though something about it doesn't feel right...
The Hit
There’s a better than fair chance that even the people who know 1980’s “Steal Away” think somebody besides Robbie Dupree recorded it. God knows someone else did. When he heard it, a music writer for the Los Angeles Times named John D’Agostino ripped it as a “blatant, wimpy rip-off of the Michael McDonald/Kenny Loggins’ composition ‘What a Fool Believes’”; the Washington Post flagged similarities in Dupree’s vocal style and the backing keyboards. McDonald didn’t give a shit, apparently, but his publisher flirted with a lawsuit for theft.
If you toggle back and forth between “Steal Away” and “What a Fool Believes” over and over again - as I’m sure D’Agostino and McDonald publishers did - yeah, the similarities in the backing keyboards come through. But the vocals?
Once you expand to the song as a whole - i.e., include the thicker (better) bass on “What a Fool Believes,” or the way the musical elements in “Steal Away” play together, while McDonald’s tune has more contrasts and oppositions - you get what the critics heard, basically, all the way down the “wimpy,” but Dupree’s slipped in some nice touches - e.g., the big, twanging strings that dominate the bridges, the way the song fades in as if you’re waking up to it. You don't have to love it, but give it credit for having a different mood.
The song came out of nowhere - and it took a minor miracle for it to go anywhere further than Dupree’s head - but he did not.
The Rest of the Story
As just about anything you read or hear about Robbie Dupree points out, you’d think he was from anywhere but Brooklyn. Born Robert Dupuis in 1946, he grew up and went to school much like anyone else - i.e., he didn’t have any immediate household influences - but he loved music, especially soul/R&B artists like Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye and played from an early age. When he made the decision to take a swing as a working musician, Dupree moved north to Woodstock, New York - which, as he regularly points out, was not the sight of the famous/infamous 1969 rock festival. In a 2018 retrospective on PopMatters, Dupree recalled his Woodstock:
The Hit
There’s a better than fair chance that even the people who know 1980’s “Steal Away” think somebody besides Robbie Dupree recorded it. God knows someone else did. When he heard it, a music writer for the Los Angeles Times named John D’Agostino ripped it as a “blatant, wimpy rip-off of the Michael McDonald/Kenny Loggins’ composition ‘What a Fool Believes’”; the Washington Post flagged similarities in Dupree’s vocal style and the backing keyboards. McDonald didn’t give a shit, apparently, but his publisher flirted with a lawsuit for theft.
If you toggle back and forth between “Steal Away” and “What a Fool Believes” over and over again - as I’m sure D’Agostino and McDonald publishers did - yeah, the similarities in the backing keyboards come through. But the vocals?
Once you expand to the song as a whole - i.e., include the thicker (better) bass on “What a Fool Believes,” or the way the musical elements in “Steal Away” play together, while McDonald’s tune has more contrasts and oppositions - you get what the critics heard, basically, all the way down the “wimpy,” but Dupree’s slipped in some nice touches - e.g., the big, twanging strings that dominate the bridges, the way the song fades in as if you’re waking up to it. You don't have to love it, but give it credit for having a different mood.
The song came out of nowhere - and it took a minor miracle for it to go anywhere further than Dupree’s head - but he did not.
The Rest of the Story
As just about anything you read or hear about Robbie Dupree points out, you’d think he was from anywhere but Brooklyn. Born Robert Dupuis in 1946, he grew up and went to school much like anyone else - i.e., he didn’t have any immediate household influences - but he loved music, especially soul/R&B artists like Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye and played from an early age. When he made the decision to take a swing as a working musician, Dupree moved north to Woodstock, New York - which, as he regularly points out, was not the sight of the famous/infamous 1969 rock festival. In a 2018 retrospective on PopMatters, Dupree recalled his Woodstock:
