A respected name in rare soul circles, but barely known outside, is
Tommy Tate. Tate was born in Florida in 1944 and had only three singles
register on the R&B charts between 1972-76, none of which you would
say are particularly well known, "School Of Life", "Hardtimes S.O.S."
and "If You Ain't Man Enough".
His recording career dates back earlier to 1965 with a debut single
for ABC-Paramount. He released a couple of singles for Chicago's Okeh
label in 1966 after two in groups, Tommy & The Derbys and Tim
Winslett & The Imperial Band. A few more appeared on different
labels before his most productive period at Johnny Baylor's KoKo label
beginning in 1971 (after a brief spell with The Nightingales when
Ollie Hoskins decided to go solo) where he had all three of his
R&B hits.
By the end of the 70s he switched to Frederick Knight's
Juana label where he released a self-titled album in 1981 and then a
few singles on Sundance. Another album appeared on Tim Whitsett's
Urgent in 1990. Several compilation are available from Kent, P-Vine
and Soundscape.
Alex Subina's Soul4Real Records has selected two tracks from his
debut album, "Hold On", which he recorded at Malaco in the late 70s but was left
unreleased. Without his knowledge, it was released by Malaco in Japan
in 1979 (and later reissued on CD in 2014, 2018 and 2019, again only
in Japan).
The songs are the title track, "Hold On" written by Tate and first recorded by James Carr on Atlantic in
1971 (which was Carr's last recording). The other is possibly one of
his most in-demand songs "I Can't Do Enough For You Baby" which has only appeared on 7" vinyl previously via a 2014 reissue
by Austrian label Record Shack. Tate died in Jan 2017 aged 71.
Available to pre-order now from Soul4Real for release on 1st March 2024.
Click on image below for link to where you can buy from.
| Rating: | 8.5 |
| Explicit: | N |
| Genre/Style: | Southern Soul |
| Format: | Single |
| Media: | 7" Vinyl / Reissue |
| Label: | Soul4Real |
| Cat No: | S4R33 |
| Date: | 01/03/2024 |
| Key/BPM: | N/A |
| Price: | €15 |
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