Search - Rufus Thomas :: Crown Prince of Dance

The Second Hardest Working Man In Showbusiness

Eddie Landsberg | Tokyo, Japan | 10/18/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"First, forget the sound samples... I have no idea why they do this... they picked the two corniest tracks on the album(s) to put up... Jeez, great promotional tool (not !) but trust me, Rufus Thomas is funky... especially if you dig Stax, and you dig late '60s James Brown... Rufus is the man... its down home funk... I first discovered him via his performance on WATTSTAX... he practically stole the show... Best known for combining "the latest funky dance craze" with a variety of Novelty themes, and a lot of tunes that had titles that began "Do The (Funky) Something or Another" tunes like The Breakdown, Git on up and Do It, Funkiest Man Alive, The Funky Robot, I Wanna Sang and The Funky Bird with their funky rhythm guitar licks, Rufus's fat and throaty voices, and those crisp Memphis horn punches warrent some heavy dancing, and in many ways are a sampler's wet dream... Somewhere between JB, and Dyke and The Blazers and Archie Bell and The Drells... this is real blues drenched classic SOUL with a bit of funk in the pocket...
Rufus Thomas may not have rewritten the book, but he definitely knew how to throw it around the people.. Maybe if you look around Amazon you can find some sound clips of the tunes I mentioned and check it out... you tell me if I'm lying...
I have both these albums on vinyl... and trust me, they've gotten their fair share of play...A Top Pick in *my* book for fans of classic Memphis soul w/ a touch of JB !"