Don’t call Peter B. DuPré a musician. That’s not how the 96-year-old World War II veteran would describe himself.
“I am a harmonica player,” DuPré, who spent three years stationed in England as a U.S. Army medic, told The Washington Post. “I don’t know a darn thing about music, but I know how to make a harmonica talk.”
On Sunday, moments before the U.S. women’s national soccer teamplayedMexico in its final exhibition match before the start of the Women’s World Cup next month, DuPré lifted his trusty instrument to his lips and did just that — delivering a rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” that has sincegone viral, with manytoutingit as one of the best versions of the national anthem they have ever witnessed.
“This was just the simple ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ the way it was written, and played the way it was meant to be played,” said the resident of Fairport, N.Y., a small village just east of Rochester.
COURTESY WASHINGTON POST