 He was the first piano player to punch the clock at Stax Records.He played on the label's earliest national hits, including "Burnt Biscuits" (by the short-lived group The Triumphs, later covered by Booker T. & the MGs), childhood friend William Bell's "You Don't Miss Your Water", and the company's first hit "Cause I Love You" (featuring a sixteen-year-old Booker T. Jones on saxophone), a duet by Rufus and Carla Thomas.He also played on some of Wilson Pickett sessions at Stax and at Muscle Shoals.