Rufus Thomas (1917–2001), born in Cayce, became a recording artist, disc jockey, comedian, and ambassador for Memphis music whose career stretched from the early 1940s until his death. After his family moved to Memphis about 1921, he graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in 1936, toured with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels as a tap dancer and later singer, and went on to emcee the amateur contest at Beale Street’s Palace Theater with Robert “Bones” Couch, where an early notable winner was B. B. King. Influenced by Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, and Gatemouth Moore, he made early recordings for Star Talent, Bullet, Chess, Sun, and Meteor, and in 1953 scored Sun’s first hit with “Bear Cat,” an answer song to Big Mama Thornton’s “Hound Dog.” He also became a prominent radio figure at WDIA after being hired in 1950 by his former history teacher Nat D. Williams, hosting programs including Hoot 'n' Holler and, after a period at WLOK and a return to WDIA in 1986, the “All Blues Show” with Jay Michael Davis. A second recording career began in 1960 when he and his daughter Carla recorded “Cause I Love You” for Satellite, soon renamed Stax, where over the next fifteen years he had multiple hits including “The Dog,” “Walking the Dog,” “Do the Funky Chicken,” “Jump Back,” “The Breakdown,” and the No. 1 R&B hit “(Do the) Push and Pull.” Alongside his radio and recording work, he held a full-time job at the American Finishing Company until 1963, later appeared in the 1973 concert film Wattstax, Jim Jarmusch’s 1989 Mystery Train, and D. A. Pennebaker’s Only the Strong Survive, and received honors including induction into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2001, a Memphis street named for him, and Rufus Thomas Park in Porretta, Italy.