Mississippi Blues Trail - Rufus Thomas
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Mississippi Blues Trail
Cache Challenge
The Mississippi Blues Trail was established by the Mississippi Bureau of Tourism to recognize the unique connection our state has with a style of music known as the "Mississippi Blues" or simply "the Blues." Many musicians acquired fame, and for some fortune, playing this style of music.
These markers are in places of historical significance to the blues music heritage. Each marker tells about a specific piece of that history. The vast majority of these markers are in the Delta region in the northwest part of the state.
This challenge involves visiting those historical MS Blues Trail markers scattered out around the state of Mississippi...and even beyond.
At or near many of these markers there is a geocache hidden. Your quest is to visit these markers and find the geocaches associated with them.
Each Blues Trail Geocache consists of one find towards the final goal of 50 Blues Trail Geocaches in order for challenge completion for final.
Here is a bookmark link to the current blues trail caches -Mississippi Blues Caches
We hope your ventures along the way
to completion of this challenge are both
memorable and rewarding!
Welcome to the Mississippi Blues Trail, your unforgettable journey into the land that spawned the single most important root source of modern popular music. Whether you're a die-hard blues fan or a casual traveler in search of an interesting trip, you'll find facts you didn't know, places you've never seen, and you'll gain a new appreciation for the area that gave birth to the blues.
MISSISSIPPI BLUES TRAIL HONORS RUFUS THOMAS
This is the 163rd marker on the trail. A recording artist, disc jockey, comedian and ambassador for Memphis music, Rufus Thomas (1917 – 2001) was born in Cayce, Miss.. As a young man Thomas toured with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels, and later worked in Memphis as an emcee at Beale Street’s Palace Theater and as an influential and long serving deejay on WDIA. Known as the “world’s oldest teenager,” Thomas recorded blues for Chess and Sun, and his many soul hits for Stax included "Walking the Dog." Rufus Thomas embodied the spirit of Memphis music perhaps more than any other artist, and from the early 1940s until his death on December 15, 2001, occupied many important roles in the local scene. Thomas was born in Cayce on March 26, 1917, and his family moved to Memphis when he was just an infant. After graduation from Booker T. Washington High School in 1936, Thomas went out on the road with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels of Port Gibson, Miss., initially working as a tap dancer and later as a singer. He later became the host—together with partner Robert “Bones” Couch—of the popular amateur contest at Beale Street’s Palace Theater, where the most notable winner in the 1940s was a then-unknown B. B. King. Thomas, who counted Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller and Gatemouth Moore as his most important musical influences, made his first recording for the Star Talent label around Christmas 1949, followed by singles for Bullet and Chess. In 1953, he scored the first hit for Sam Phillips’ new Sun label with "Bear Cat," an answer song to Big Mama Thornton’s "Hound Dog." Thomas remained a prominent force in Memphis music via his popular “Hoot 'n' Holler” program at WDIA; his high school history teacher, Nat D. Williams, hired him as a deejay at the station in 1950. A second and more successful stage of Thomas’ recording career as a soul singer began in 1960, when he recorded "'Cause I Love You," a duet with his teenaged daughter Carla, for the new Satellite label. A regional hit, it prompted a production and distribution deal with powerful Atlantic Records. Satellite soon changed its name to Stax, and over the next 15 years Thomas scored multiple hits for the label, 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," recorded when the perennially young Thomas was 53. His later recordings included albums for Alligator, A.V.I. and Ecko, and singles for Ichiban ("Rappin' Rufus"), Erwin, Hi and Artists of America. In addition to his radio and recording career, Thomas provided for his family by working full-time at the American Finishing Company textile firm from the early 1940s until 1963. In the mid-1970s, he left WDIA, but returned to the station in 1986, hosting the popular “All Blues Show” with Jay Michael Davis. Thomas, who gave a memorable performance in the 1973 concert film Wattstax, returned to the big screen for Jim Jarmusch’s 1989 Mystery Train and D. A. Pennebaker’s soul documentary, Only the Strong Survive, which also featured Carla Thomas. Honors bestowed on him include induction in the Blues Hall of Fame (2001), the naming of a Memphis street in his honor and the creation of Rufus Thomas Park in Poretta, Italy, the site of a popular annual soul festival.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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