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Rufus Thomas
Rufus C. Thomas, Jr. (March 26, 1917 – December 15, 2001) was an American rhythm-and-blues, funk, soul and blues singer, songwriter, dancer, DJ and comic entertainer from Memphis, Tennessee. He recorded for several labels, including Chess Records and Sun Records in the 1950s, before becoming established in the 1960s and 1970s at Stax Records. He is best known for his novelty dance records, including "Walking the Dog" (1963), "Do the Funky Chicken" (1969), and " (Do the) Push and Pull" (1970). According to the Mississippi Blues Commission, "Rufus Thomas embodied the spirit of Memphis music perhaps more than any other artist, and from the early 1940s until his death . . . occupied many important roles in the local scene." He began his career as a tap dancer, vaudeville performer, and master of ceremonies in the 1930s. He later worked as a disc jockey on radio station WDIA in Memphis, both before and after his recordings became successful. He remained active into ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cayce, Mississippi
Cayce is an unincorporated community in Marshall County, Mississippi, United States. Although Cayce is an unincorporated community, it has a business district and shares a ZIP code with Byhalia of 38611. The Center of Cayce lies at the junction of Cayce Road and Lee Creek Road,https://maps.google.com/ approximately one-half mile south of Mississippi Highway 302. Business district The business district in Cayce is actually three miles north of the center of town, at the junction of Cayce Road and U.S. Route 72. There is a residential district between the center of town and the business district. Neighboring towns Cayce is bordered by Olive Branch to the west, Piperton and Collierville, Tennessee to the north, Taska and Mount Pleasant to the east, and Victoria to the south. Notable person * Rufus Thomas, musician and comedian; was born here, but grew up in Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carla Thomas
Carla Venita Thomas (born December 21, 1942) is an American singer, who is often referred to as the Queen of Memphis Soul. Thomas is best known for her 1960s recordings for Atlantic and Stax including the hits "Gee Whiz (Look at His Eyes)" (1960), "B-A-B-Y" (1966) and "Tramp" (1967), a duet with Otis Redding. She is the daughter of Rufus Thomas. Biography Childhood Thomas was born and raised in the Foote Homes Projects in Memphis, Tennessee, United States. Along with her siblings, Marvell and Vaneese, she was one of three musical children of Rufus and Lorene Thomas. Despite growing up in the projects, the Thomas family lived near the Palace Theater on Beale Street, as Rufus was the theater's Master of Ceremonies (MC) for their amateur shows.Freeland, David. "Carla Thomas – Memphis's Reluctant Soul Queen". ''Ladies of Soul''. University Press of Mississippi, 2001. pp. 56–75. This access not only gave Thomas her first taste of the music world but it also provided a springboar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition or light poetry, interspersed with songs or ballets. It became popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s, but the idea of vaudeville's theatre changed radically from its French antecedent. In some ways analogous to music hall from Victorian Britain, a typical North American vaudeville performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill. Types of acts have included popular and classical musicians, singers, dancers, comedians, trained animals, magicians, ventriloquists, strongmen, female and male impersonators, acrobats, clowns, illustrated songs, jugglers, one-act plays or scenes from plays, athletes, lecturing celebrities, minstrels, and movies. A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tap Dancer
Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sounds of tap shoes striking the floor as a form of percussion. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm (jazz) tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses on dance; it is widely performed in musical theater. Rhythm tap focuses on musicality, and practitioners consider themselves to be a part of the jazz tradition. The sound is made by shoes that have a metal "tap" on the heel and toe. There are different brands of shoes which sometimes differ in the way they sound. Ok History The fusion of several ethnic percussive dances, such as West African step dances and Welsh, Irish, and Scottish clog dancing, hornpipes, and jigs, tap dance is believed to have begun in the mid-1800s during the rise of minstrel shows. As minstrel shows began to decline in popularity, tap dance moved to the increasingly popular Vaudeville stage. Due to Vaudeville's unspoken "two-colored rule", which forbade blacks to perform solo, many Vaudevi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
(Do The) Push And Pull
"(Do The) Push and Pull (Part 1)" is a 1970 single on Stax Records by singer Rufus Thomas. The song was written by Thomas, and the recording was arranged by Carl Hampton, and produced by Al Bell Al Bell (born Alvertis Isbell; March 15, 1940) is an American record producer, songwriter, and record executive. He is best known as having been an executive and co-owner of Stax Records, based in Memphis, Tennessee, during the latter half of the ... and Tom Nixon. This was the first and only number-one song for Thomas, who had first hit the R&B chart in 1953. The song was at the top of the ''Billboard'' Best Selling Soul Singles chart for two weeks in February 1971. The single also reached the Top 30 on the pop chart, peaking at number 25. Chart performance References 1970 singles Rufus Thomas songs 1970 songs Stax Records singles {{1970s-R&B-song-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Do The Funky Chicken
"Do the Funky Chicken" is a song written and recorded by American R&B singer and entertainer Rufus Thomas for Stax Records in 1969. The song was used as the title track of Thomas' 1970 LP, ''Do The Funky Chicken''. It became one of his biggest hits, reaching #5 on the R&B chart in early 1970, #28 on the US pop chart, and #18 in Britain where it was his only chart hit. Background The record was one of a series of novelty dance hits for Thomas. He improvised the song after performing with Willie Mitchell's band at the University of Tennessee, developing it further at a gig in Covington. Thomas said: I did it in the middle of doing another song... and the words just started to come. I don't know how, they just came out of the blue. I just separated it. 'You raise your left arm up, and your right arm too.' When you're doing the funky chicken you use both arms. You don't just use one. It just happened I separated it. Then I put a little rhythm in between it. The same ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walking The Dog
"Walking the Dog" (or "Walkin' the Dog") is a song written and performed by Rufus Thomas. It was released on his 1963 album ''Walking the Dog''. It was his signature hit and also his biggest, reaching number 10 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 in December 1963 and remaining on the Hot 100 for 14 weeks. Billboard Top 100. Retrieved on 20 January 2009. Background The Rufus Thomas version begins with the quoting of the first 14 notes of Mendelssohn's Wedding March from "Midsummer's Night's Dream". This version is noted for Rufus whistling and calling out for his dog, to go walking with him. The lyrics make references to children's nursery rhymes, especially . The Dennisons ...
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Entertainer
An entertainer is someone who provides entertainment in various different forms. Types of entertainers * Acrobat * Actor * Archimime * Athlete * Barker * Beatboxer * Benshi * Bouffon * Circus performer * Clown * Club Hostess/Host * Comedian * Dancer * Drag queen * Drag king * Emcee * Filmmaker * Flag throwing * Flair bartender * Flatulist * Geisha * Go-go dancer * Harlequin * Host * Illusionist * Impressionist * Internet celebrity * Itinerant poet * Japanese idol * Jester * Kobzar * Lirnyk * Magic (illusion), Magician * Master of ceremonies * Mime * Minstrel * Monologist * Musician * Painter * Party princess * Performer * Photographer * Podcaster * Poet * Pornographic actor * Promotional model * Radio personality * Rapper * Rhapsode * Ring girl * Ringmaster * Scop * Shamakhi dancers * Showgirl * Showman * Showrunner * Singer * Skomorokh * Streamer * Street performer * Stunt performer * Theatre practitioner * TikToker * TV celebrity * Vedette * Writer * YouTub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the African-American culture. The blues form is ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll, and is characterized by the call-and-response pattern (the blues scale and specific chord progressions) of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes (or "worried notes"), usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in pitch, are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove. Blues as a genre is also characterized by its lyrics, bass lines, and instrumentation. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times. It was only in the first decades of the 20th century that the most common current str ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soul Music
Soul music is a popular music genre that originated in the African American community throughout the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It has its roots in African-American gospel music and rhythm and blues. Soul music became popular for dancing and listening, where U.S. record labels such as Motown, Atlantic and Stax were influential during the Civil Rights Movement. Soul also became popular around the world, directly influencing rock music and the music of Africa. It also had a resurgence with artists like Erykah Badu under the genre neo-soul. Catchy rhythms, stressed by handclaps and extemporaneous body moves, are an important feature of soul music. Other characteristics are a call and response between the lead vocalist and the chorus and an especially tense vocal sound. The style also occasionally uses improvisational additions, twirls, and auxiliary sounds. Soul music reflects the African-American identity, and it stresses the importance of an African-Ameri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhythm And Blues
Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated in African-American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music ... ith aheavy, insistent beat" was becoming more popular. In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, the bands usually consisted of piano, one or two guitars, bass, drums, one or more saxophones, and sometimes background vocalists. R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy, as well as triumphs and failures in terms of relationships, economics, and aspirations. The term "rhythm and blues" has undergone a number of shifts in meaning. In the early 1950s, it was frequently applied to blues records. Starting in the mid-1950s, after this style of music contr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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