Rufus Thomas The Sun Years, plus (CD)

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catalog number: BCD16695
weight in Kg 0.115
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CD digipac with 68-page booklet, 29 tracks, playing time 85 mns. 29 tracks including all known... more

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Rufus Thomas: The Sun Years, plus (CD)

CD digipac with 68-page booklet, 29 tracks, playing time 85 mns.

29 tracks including all known surviving recordings from 1949 ' 1956, plus 2 recently discovered sides from his first recording session for Star Talent. All 8 original 78 rpm discs for Star Talent, Bullet, Chess, Sun, and Meteor. Some of these now for the first time ever from the first generation-tape. 3 recordings from the Memphis Recording Service, not originally issued and 2 original versions of songs Rufus Thomas covered (1 by Joe Hill Louis, 1 by Rosco Gordon; previously unissued). You'll also get the original version of Hound Dog by Big Mama Thornton, and 2 bonus recordings by Rufus Thomas' fellow DJ,
Moohah Williams. Extras includce 2 extracts from Rufus Thomas on radio WDIA in the 1950s and a rare radio interview with Daddy Cool. And of course, mastered as only Bear Family can do it. A newly researched 68-page booklet by Martin Hawkins largely based on interviews by himself and Dave Booth, plus rare photos and adverts.

Rufus Thomas was a one-off: a larger than life character who made as great a contribution to the performance and style of American music as he did to the recording of it. He saw it all from black vaudeville to rap... and played a major role in the evolution of African American music. His earlier R&B recordings have been unjustly obscured by his later role in the development of Stax Records and his string of soul hits. But Rufus Thomas was ' though he always played it down ' a damn fine blues and R&B singer in the 1950s. And this is one of the best cross-sections of African American music you'll hear from the period.
Rufus Thomas sings with the Lionel Hampton band, several Memphis R&B dance bands, and with Sun studio session groups. And, in case we forget, he gave Sun Records its first hit, Bear Cat.

Article properties: Rufus Thomas: The Sun Years, plus (CD)

Interpret: Rufus Thomas
Album titlle: The Sun Years, plus (CD)
Genre R&B, Soul
Label Bear Family Records
Preiscode AH
Artikelart CD
EAN: 4000127166951
weight in Kg 0.115

Thomas, Rufus - The Sun Years, plus (CD) CD 1
01	I'll Be A Good Boy	Rufus Thomas
02	I'm So Worried	Rufus Thomas
03	Who's That Chick	Rufus Thomas
04	Double Trouble	Rufus Thomas
05	Beer Bottle Boogie	Rufus Thomas
06	Gonna Bring My Baby Back	Rufus Thomas
07	Night Workin' Blues	Rufus Thomas
08	Why Did You Deegee	Rufus Thomas
09	Crazy About You Baby	Rufus Thomas
10	No More Dogging Around	Rufus Thomas
11	Decorate The Counter	Rufus Thomas
12	Decorate The Counter	Rufus Thomas
13	Juanita	Rufus Thomas
14	Married Woman û1	Rufus Thomas
15	Married Woman û2	Rufus Thomas
16	I'm Off That Stuff	Rufus Thomas
17	Hound Dog	Rufus Thomas
18	Bear Cat (The Answer To Hound Dog)	Rufus Thomas
19	Walkin' In The Rain	Rufus Thomas
20	Tiger Man (King Of The Jungle)	Rufus Thomas
21	Tiger Man (King of the Jungle)	Rufus Thomas
22	Save That Money	Rufus Thomas
23	Intro patter to Sepia Swing Club	Rufus Thomas
24	Pink Pussycat Wine	Rufus Thomas
25	All Shook Out	Rufus Thomas
26	Candy	Rufus Thomas
27	The Easy Livin' Plan	Rufus Thomas
28	I'm Steady Holdin' On	Rufus Thomas
29	Rufus Thomas on Daddy Cool show	Rufus Thomas

Rufus Thomas "I'm the only one of its kind." Louis Armstrong, one of his... more

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"Rufus Thomas"

Rufus Thomas

"I'm the only one of its kind."

Louis Armstrong, one of his inspirations, Rufus Thomas was larger than life. He came both to symbolise the place and the music he grew from, and to transcend that time and place. His career spanned black music from vaudeville to funk.

We capture him here in the 1950s, the R&B years, at a time when he was firmly of and about Memphis, Tennessee and when he was just starting out as a recording artist. He was rather impressive fronting a blues combo or a swing jazz band, although he would often say, "I'm not really a singer, but I think I'm a pretty decent entertainer."

Rufus Thomas was above all a performer, a character. He was a dancer, an emcee, and a disc jockey before he found fame as the hit-making purveyor of dance-related recordings in the 1960s. Even then, it was his performance of those hits that was to the fore. Rufus came across as a man programmed to provide fun, who seemed not to take his music – or life in general - very seriously.

Yet Rufus Thomas did take very seriously his attempts to build a career as an entertainer, and he was a man who wanted to be given his due for the dues he had paid. In the early days of R&B, those dues included melding together elements of swing jazz and the blues with some memorable phrases and a winning vocal delivery, producing a considerable body of recorded music that has been under acknowledged over the years.

This CD collects together all the known surviving recordings Rufus made between 1949 and 1956 – his pre-Stax days, pre-Walking The Dog. Included are two previously discovered sides from his first recording session, for Star Talent. All eight of his original 78 rpm singles are here, as are all his other – not originally issued – songs recorded by Sam Phillips at the Memphis Recording Service. The original versions of three of Rufus’s recordings, by Rosco Gordon, Big Mama Thornton and Joe Hill Louis, are included also as interesting comparisons. We have included other bonus items: extracts from Rufus on radio WDIA, a disc by Rufus’s fellow disc jockey, Moohah, and parts of an illuminating radio interview Rufus gave to Dave Booth in 1986.

"We didn't make a lot of money but we had a damn good time."

Rufus Thomas was always quick to make sure that you knew he was a city man first and foremost. In one of his earliest in-depth interviews he told Peter Guralnick: "I was born in Mississippi just below Collierville, about five miles from the Tennessee line in a little place called Cayce; it's not on anybody's map. That was March 26 1917, [though his social security records say March 27] but I grew up in Memphis. I been here since I was a year old. I don't know anything about country life, to tell you the truth."

from booklet BCD16695 - Rufus Thomas The Sun Years, plus
Read more at: https://www.bear-family.de/thomas-rufus-the-sun-years-plus.html
Copyright © Bear Family Records

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