Decades after the Memphis soul star and radio personality Rufus Thomas proclaimed himself "the world’s oldest teenager," he continued living up to the title. In his 80s, Thomas would still gyrate across the stage in his schoolboy’s shorts during concert appearances, much as he did in the 1950s and early ’60s when his hits "Bear Cat" and "Walking the Dog" topped the R&B and pop charts.

Heart failure stopped the mutton-chopped songwriter in the early morning hours of Saturday, December 15, at age 84. Thus ended a career in entertainment that began in the streets of Memphis, where Thomas started tap dancing for tips when he was 10 after his parents moved their family from Cayce, Mississippi. His first professional gig came in 1936 when he joined the all-black Rabbit Foot Minstrel revue, which toured the South playing for segregated audiences in tents.

Thomas first recorded in the early 1940s, cutting singles for small regional labels. A few years later he became a disc jockey on Memphis’s influential WDIA-AM, a station that carried the sounds of blues and, a decade later, early R&B throughout the South. Thomas helped put Sam Phillips’s Sun Records on the map in 1953 when he cut the label’s first hit, "Beat Cat," an answer record to Big Mama Thornton’s popular recording of "Hound Dog," later made famous by Elvis Presley.

Elvis was influenced by the 45s that Thomas spun on WDIA, and when Sun began recording Presley and a stable of other young rockers, including Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins, Thomas championed their recordings on the air. His influence with white teenagers helped erode the color line in racially charged Memphis.

He also helped birth the sound of Memphis soul in the early 1960s when he teamed with his daughter Carla for the duet "Cause I Love You." The song was the first hit for the label Stax, whose imprint soon became synonymous with Southern soul. He followed that in 1963 with his defining number-10 pop-chart hit "Walking the Dog," a funky dance number with suggestive limerick lyrics that’s been covered by Aerosmith, the Flaming Groovies, the Kingsmen, John Cale, and scores of other rockers. Thomas crossed into the pop Top 40 three more times, with "Do the Funky Chicken" (1970), "Do the Push and Pull, Part 1" (1971), and "The Breakdown, Part 1" (1971). Like many of his recordings, these songs echo his fun-loving, exuberant stage persona.

Thomas recorded a total of 17 albums. His most recent was 1999’s Swing Out With Rufus (High Stacks). And he performed live as often as his health would allow. He also began a film career late in 1989, with small roles in Jim Jarmusch’s Mystery Train and the Jerry Lee Lewis biopic Great Balls of Fire! More recently he appeared in Robert Altman’s 1999 film Cookie’s Fortune.

Although he received many honors during his life, including a Pioneer Award from the R&B Foundation in 1992, Thomas never rested on his laurels. He continued to perform and make appearances at events like the Blues Foundation’s annual W.C. Handy Awards as often as his health permitted. He was also generous with his knowledge of Memphis music history and appeared last month in the PBS documentary Good Rockin’ Tonight: The Legacy of Sun Records.

Issue Date: December 20 - 27, 2001

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