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F. Leon ---------- Forwarded message ---------- To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [VILLAGE] Memphis musician Rufus Thomas dies at 84 Memphis musician Rufus Thomas dies at 84 MEMPHIS (AP) - Musician Rufus Thomas, whose Bear Cat helped Sun Records get its start and whose Do the Funky Chicken gave a boost to the Stax Label, died yesterday. He was 84. Mr. Thomas' son, Marvell, said his father died in St. Francis Hospital. He had been hospitalized since Thanksgiving for an undisclosed illness. ''This is the end of an era, and the world will miss him dearly,'' Marvell Thomas said. Mr. Thomas was best known for novelty dance recordings such as Walking the Dog, Do the Funky Chicken and Push and Pull. He began tap dancing on the streets of Memphis for tips and performed in amateur shows in high school. In the 1940s, Mr. Thomas ran his own Beale Street amateur show, which attracted B.B. King, Bobby ''Blue'' Bland and many other performers who went on to become famous. In his declining years, Mr. Thomas took on the title of ''Beale Street ambassador'' and liked to refer to himself as the world's oldest teen-ager. While Mr. Thomas is best remembered as a Memphis icon, he and his music weren't strangers to Nashville. Mr. Thomas drew fans to his Nashville shows throughout his life, returning to Music City to be honored among the royalty at Bourbon Street Blues & Boogie Bar's annual Mardi Gras celebration and using local musicians, including Nashville bluesman Stacy Mitchhart, to help revive hits such as Walking the Dog. Even when Mr. Thomas wasn't here in person to sing his songs, they were often performed on Middle Tennessee stages by acts as stylistically divergent as rock band Jason and the Scorchers, bluegrass legend Del McCoury and Lower Broadway country music mainstay Don Kelley. In 1998, Mr. Thomas underwent open-heart surgery at a Memphis hospital. Mr. Thomas was born in Cayce, Miss., in 1917 and grew up in Memphis. In high school, he met Nat D. Williams, a history teacher who organized annual variety shows. In the late 1940s, Williams became one of the first black radio personalities in the South. "Then, a black man on the radio had always been taboo," Mr. Thomas once told The Associated Press. "When they heard that black voice advertising their products, most of the advertisers pulled their ads." In 1953, Mr. Thomas recorded Bear Cat, an answer to Big Mama Thornton's Hound Dog, and it became Sun Record's first hit. That was before Elvis Presley arrived on the scene to become Sun's undisputed star. Mr. Thomas complained in later years that Sun's black artists were pushed aside after Presley became a star. In the 1960s, Mr. Thomas became one of the founding performers for Stax Records, which created, with performers such as Isaac Hayes, Otis Redding and Sam and Dave, what came to be known as ''the Memphis sound.'' Funeral arrangements are pending.
