Four tracks were cut, two of which, I’ll Be A Good Boy and I’m So Worried, subsequently appeared on Erickson’s Star Talent label which operated out of Dallas, Texas. In 1950, whilst working at Curry’s Club Tropicana in North Memphis, he was approached by a man called Jesse Erickson who asked if he could record Rufus and the band. In addition to all the above, he started work as a DJ in 1951, hosting an afternoon R&B show on station WDIA.īacktracking slightly, his first record came about somewhat fortuitously. King and Bobby Bland strode those boards. The pairing acted as MCs of the Amateur Hour talent show at the Palace Theatre and during this period both B.B. In addition, he became half of a comedy duo “Rufus And Bones” with Robert “Bones” Couch. In the evenings he would work as a singer in various night clubs in the city. To support the family, Rufus got himself a day job at a textile bleaching plant which he continued in for over 20 years. In 1940, he married his wife Cornelia and settled in Memphis. The tap dancing got him into the Rabbit Foot Minstrels but whilst with them he extended his role into comedy and singing. He was born an entertainer, becoming an accomplished tap dancer by the age of 10 (which, in later years he would claim, gave him his good timing). was born in Cayce, Mississippi on 26th March 1917 but the family moved to Memphis when he was still very young. Many and varied are the subjects who have been celebrated within these hallowed portals but what – or who – we’ve not seen so far is a man whose first regular paid entertainment work came via the Rabbit Foot Minstrels, whose first record was released when he was 33 years old, whose only hit in the UK (which came in 1969 when he was 52) was about a cavorting Sunday lunch, whose entry in the history books might be “known for a series of novelty dance records” and whose dress often consisted of a tasteful ensemble utilising “pink pedal pushers, safari suits and all manner of outrageous stage costumes” ( in the words of Peter Guralnick writing in “Lost Highway”).
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