Biography

Rufus McKenzie was born to a sharecropping family in Perry, Georgia, in 1927. As a child he worked in the cotton fields, singing to his mule to pick up the pace. Rufus reflects, “I learned my music through sadness and coming up hard. I had to wear white people’s worn out shoes. I had little clothes to wear.”

How We Helped:
Rufus became a part of Music Maker in 1995, and as an artist with the organization, he has received both sustenance grants and emergency relief grants. Additionally, Music Maker has arranged his performance in New York and issued his first recordings on Came So Far and the Dixiefrog release Slavery, Prison, Women, God and… Whiskey, as well as other compilation CDs.