The Man Who Really Put Memphis on the Musical Map.

Rufus Thomas was a Memphis-based disc jockey who helped promote black music throughout the south. He also became a recording artist and producer who wrote dozens of dance hits. Rock historian Ed Ward has this profile.

Wait's two lyrical concept albums, Blood Money and Alice, are being reissued on vinyl for their 20th Anniversary. We listen back to archival interviews with the musician, broadcast in 2002 and 2011.

The renowned bluesman, who died in 2015, spoke to Fresh Air in 1996 about growing up as the son of a sharecropper — and leaving the plantation as a young man to pursue a career in music.