Rufus Thomas cut his first record at 33 and it sold five copies, four of which he bought himself. Decades later he became the only father in music history to follow his own teenage daughter into the Billboard Top 10. In this deep dive we trace the ultimate late bloomer from a Mississippi sharecropping family that moved to Memphis around 1920, through a stage debut at age six playing a frog, tap dancing for change on the streets at ten, and a mentorship under teacher, columnist and pioneering radio DJ Nat D. Williams that had him emceeing the Palace Theater on Beale Street by 13.

We follow his years with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels tent show, the 1940 wedding officiated by Aretha Franklin's father C.L. Franklin, and the more than 20 years he spent operating steam boilers at the American Finishing Company textile plant by day while running Beal ...