Twisted Tales: Rumors of Soul Singer Howard Tate's Death Are Exaggerated

Posted on Apr 11th 2008 5:00PM by James Sullivan
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Howard Tate's fans thought he was dead. Back in the day, the singer's stone soul nuggets had been covered by Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, among others, so the assumption that Tate, too, had made his way to rock 'n' roll heaven was perhaps understandable.

When the soul man resurfaced a few years ago after decades of living anonymously – part of the time as an insurance salesman, part of it as a homeless addict – he was stunned that folks had been trying to find him. "It was a shock to hear" that people thought he was dead, he said. "I'm glad I'm not."

His career – the first part of it, anyway – was promising but brief. Born in 1939 outside Macon, Ga., where something in the water has given the music world Little Richard, Otis Redding, the Allman Brothers and half of R.E.M., Howard Tate moved at a young age with his family to Philadelphia. There he joined a gospel group formed by future soul star Garnett Mimms. Through that association, Tate met producer Jerry Ragavoy, who steered the singer's career toward the R&B charts. Joplin soon adopted Tate's signature song, 'Get It While You Can,' as one of her own. Hendrix, meanwhile, covered Tate's 'Stop.'

By 1970, however, the soulman's career was on the skids. Despite production help from singers Lloyd Price and Johnny Nash, Tate's next album received almost no support from the record company. A last-ditch reunion with Ragavoy that featured covers of songs by Bob Dylan and the Band was equally ignored, and by the end of the 1970s Tate had given up on music entirely.

By then, he'd suffered the loss of his 13-year-old daughter, who died in a house fire. Tate's 1981 divorce pushed him over the edge, and he spent the next several years wallowing in drugs and alcohol. "You wake up one day and you're homeless," as he told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2002.

Cleaned up by the mid-1990s, Tate joined the ministry and worked as a counselor. He had no idea anyone still cared about his music; a 1995 CD reissue that pronounced him a "mystery man" completely escaped his notice. When a part-time Philadelphia DJ began a crusade to find out what had happened to the gifted singer, Tate remained oblivious. Finally, a former member of Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes who happened to belong to Tate's church happened upon the DJ's weekly plea.

Ragavoy, who spent years fruitlessly tracking his former protege, was talking to a British journalist one day, lamenting the singer's disappearance. "I just talked to him yesterday," replied the writer. The astonished producer called Tate and invited his old friend to his studio in Atlanta. "He opened his mouth and I almost fell out of my chair," said Ragavoy.

After a triumphant comeback tour that began in New Orleans, Tate has kept himself busy, recording several albums and versions of songs by Elvis Costello, Prince and Lou Reed, among others. As of this writing, the 68-year-old singer is still touring and recording – not quite dead yet.