Topic: Baby Tate

[Stefan Wirz]

those discographies keep on bubbling out: This time it's Baby Tate at http://www.wirz.de/music/tatebaby.htm
Anything to add ?!?

[lenkei]

Great site.

[uncle bud]

Listening to Baby Tate recently. He's tremendous and I like to think this might be something like what Blind Boy Fuller would have sounded like had he survived. Tate is a real nice singer and his guitar-playing, and repertoire, owes a huge amount to Fuller. He also reminds me of Pink Anderson. His record See What You Done Done is one of my favorites of the Fantasy reissues. Sure wish the stuff Pete Lowry was going to release on Trix (listed on Stefan Wirz's site) had been released. I'd love to hear it.

[dj]

I couldn't agree with you more.  It's too bad Tate didn't get a chance to record in the 1930's.  From what little is available by him, his style seems to have been equally influenced by Fuller, by the whole Greenville, South Carolina crowd (Gary Davis, Willie Walker, Josh White, Pink Anderson, etc.), and by any record that happened to cross his path.  I often find myself lamenting that hole in the Trix discography where his record should have been.  Does anyone know if the material for the record was ever recorded, or if Tate had his heart attack before sessions could be held or completed?

[uncle bud]

dj - my understanding is that the recordings were done. Tate was a big help to Pete Lowry and Bruce Bastin in tracking down old blues guys. He travelled around with them and would get the old fellas playing from what I understand. I'm sure there's quite a bit recorded of him from those travels, and Stefan's discography above lists the titles from which the Trix release was supposed to be drawn. Bastin had even written the liner notes in preparation for the release and cites them in a footnote in his Red River Blues book on blues in the southeast. It's a damned shame it never made it out. I'm still listening to the See What You Done Done CD and love it more and more. He's a tremendous singer and looking into the background a bit more I see that his playing sounds a bit like Pink Anderson because he is supposed to have taught Pink a whole bunch of tunes!

[dj]

Oops!  Es tut mir Leid, Stefan.  I enjoy your discographies very much and visit them fairly often.  I noted the lack of track listing for Trix 3313 in the Trix discography and somehow completely missed the list of what Tate recorded for Pete Lowry in the Baby Tate discography.  I see from following the "More info" link in Stefan's list of Tate's titles recorded for Trix that Lowry thought the music he recorded by Tate to be not of good enough quality to release.  While it's unfortunate that Tate's Trix tecordings may not have been representative of his best work, it's also unfortunate that such a major body of work from a musician of such high caliber is unavailable to those of us who care.

There seems to be a lot of recording that Pete Lowry did that never saw the light of day.  Almost all of the Trix CDs I have say something about having enough music "in the vaults" by the artist for another CD collection.  I know there can't be a big market for this stuff, but it's too bad something can't be worked out to make this music available.

[oddenda]

Hey, y'all -

          Charles Henry Tate was an extremely fine musician from Spartanburg, SC - vo/gtr/hca - who died WAY too young (mid-50s) of stroke. He was the first major informant that Bruce Bastin and I acquired in our first deep delve into the SE. And he became something of a "scout" for us, aiding in getting in touch with Pink Anderson, Peg Leg Sam, and Roosevelt "Baby" Brooks in the Greenville/Spartanburg area. A superb human being and a close friend, I got him to come up to New Paltz, NY to play on the Spring Week End concerts that the college at which I taught. He did a solo set, then was joined by Larry Johnson, who I also got on the bill (along with Eddie Kirkland, but that's another story!) I recorded it all, but wind noise kept the stuff from being issued - maybe today's technology could deal with that enough. He then went up to Delmar, NY with Kip Lornell to play a local coffee house. Then back to SC a day or two later. Bastin and I stopped by to see him that summer on route to Atlanta, telling him that we'd be back in a week or two and would record some of his new material. On that return, we noticed that his house was locked up tight; his neighbor, who helped me get Tate to me on the bus to NY, came over and said, "They buried your friend the other day." That rocked us both horribly and was responsible for both doing HEAVY work, because "they" were all going to die before we could do something. The rest is history. A good man, missed by those who knew him.

yrs,
     Peter B.

p.s. - that's my Gibson SJ he's playing in my photo up top!

[daddystovepipe]

Baby Tate has always been one of my favorite bluesartists.
I first heard him on an lp called 'The Blues' Music from the film by Samuel Charters.  He has only three songs on it but they are the best I've heard him do.
The lp has been reissued on cd by Smithsonean and is still available; it has also some great track by Furry Lewis, Sleepy John Estes and Pink Anderson (a great pensive version of Weeping Willow)
http://www.folkways.si.edu/albumdetails.aspx?itemid=134

[RobBob]

Most of the material Baby Tate recorded was done in the month of August, in Spartanburg, SC when there was mostly likely no air conditioning.  It can be oppressive in Spartanburg in August.  I know. It is just down the road. That makes him even more impressive of a musician to me.  He was fantastic.  My fingers would stick to the strings in that heat and humidity.

RB

[oddenda]

RobBob -

           Having recorded Tate at his house mainly in the summer (I was still college teaching [biology!] then and that was the only time I had "off"), I can vouch for the heat and humidity. But a floor fan between numbers worked near miracles, and I recorded him mainly after he got home from work as a mason in the evening. Some was on week-ends, and one trip was in December! Sadly, he died before I could record the NEW songs  he had written "for me", having begun to "believe"in my activities. Bloody shame, as they would say down here.

Stovepipe -

            Interesting point is that Pink learned "Weeping Willow [a Fuller tune] from Tate, as was true of many of his "later" blues songs. When I was around, Pink could not "do" it as a result of a stroke - he recovered enough a few years later to go on tour with Roy Book Binder. I saw him in NYC at The Folklore Center and he was OK - Roy told me down here a couple of years ago that he was brilliant some nights, not so hot on others... as to be expected?

yrs,
     Peter B.

[Mr.OMuck]

RobBob -

            I saw him in NYC at The Folklore Center and he was OK - Roy told me down here a couple of years ago that he was brilliant some nights, not so hot on others... as to be expected?

yrs,
     Peter B.

I was at that concert too! Remember when Roy introduced Pink who instead of walking to the stage area just popped right up and started playing where he was, behind the audience? Was that '69? 70? That was a great series of concerts. I remember seeing Shirley Griffith & J.T. Adams at another show and Libba Cotton at another, although those were held in the Washington Sq. Church.

[oddenda]

O -

          Went to the Washington Square Church once... saw Larry Johnson, Bill Williams, and Hacksaw Harney. Great show, and I got photos (with my stuff in NJ, of course!). Wish that Baby Tate had lived longer and taken advantage of such opportunities. Those WERE the days, mate!

Peter B.

[doctorpep]

These are all awesome stories, guys! I'm trying to get a hold of Tate's "See What You Done Done" cd for a decent price. Can anyone suggest a website besides Amazon? Thanks!

[uncle bud]

The latest Roots and Rhythm newsletter says they've turned up some copies of See What You Done Done. They're going for $12.98.

[Johnm]

Hi all,
I've recently been enjoying the Flyright release "Another Man Done Gone", Flyright 528, the opening track of which is Baby Tate's rendition of "You Can Always Tell".  The performance is shockingly good, both vocally and instrumentally, and for playing in D position, standard tuning, this rendition must rank very near the top of the heap in the body of Country Blues recordings, right up there with Smith Casey's "Santa Fe Blues", which set a very high standard in this category.  Baby Tate's playing on the song is loose, inventive, assured and in the moment--he sounds a little bit like Buddy Moss, but better, if you can imagine that.  Hearing this track, which must have been recorded about the time that Peter B. Lowry recorded Baby Tate for Trix makes me feel afresh how shocking Babe Tate's untimely death must have been for those who knew him personally and valued him as a friend and musician.  If the unreleased Trix album is of the caliber of "You Can Always Tell", it must be one of the finer Country Blues recordings in the Post-War period.
All best,
Johnm