Rufus Thomas
Born
26 March 1917, Cayce, MS, United States
Died
15 December 2001, Memphis, TN, United States
Member of
..., Rabbit's Foot Minstrels, Rufus and Friend
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Biography
Rufus Thomas began his career as an entertainer with in the early 1930s with the traveling vaudeville show, The Rabbit Foot Minstrels, and more specifically as a tap dancer in Rufus and Bones. In the late 1940s, Rufus became a DJ at WDIA (where he would remain until 1974) while continuing to sing, perform, and entertain at various night clubs in Memphis. At that time, Rufus also ran the Beale Street amateur talent show where artists like Junior Parker, B.B. King, Bobby "Blue" Bland and Ike Turner were discovered.
In 1949, Rufus began his recording career for Star Talent with "I'll Be A Good Boy." Rufus would also record songs for Meteor and Chess, but it was with Sam Phillip's Sun Records that Rufus would have his first hit. In 1953, Rufus would record a rebuttal to Big Mama Thornton's "Hound Dog" entitled "Bear Cat," which reached #3 on the R&B Best Seller and Juke Box charts and became Sun Record's first hit single. Rufus would only record one more single for Sun Records, and he soon left after the discovery of Elvis Presley.
Rufus would move on to have the greatest successes of his recording career with Stax Records, where he remained until the label's collapse in 1975. "Walking The Dog," "Do The Funky Chicken," "Do the Push and Pull," and "The Breakdown" where all Top 5 R&B hits.
Though his mainstream popularity declined in the 1980s, Rufus continued to work and record. In the mid-to-late 80s he recorded a rap album ("Rappin' Rufus) and so-called "comeback album" ("That Woman Is Poison") but never generated the same buzz or fanfare that he did in his heyday.
Rufus had open-heart surgery in 1998 and passed away in 2001 at the age of 84 of a heart attack. Prior to that "the world's oldest teenager" performed at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, was recognised by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an Early Influence, was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, and had a portion of Beale Street renamed in his honour.
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