Biography
Within Chicago soul and the wider spheres of pop and R&B, arranger and producer Johnny Pate occupies a pivotal position. Credits for landmark recordings by Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions, together with other OKeh Records artists, regularly feature his name. During the 1960s he supplied charts for multiple Chicago-based R&B imprints such as Nike Records, where the Daylighters’ “Cool Breeze” and the Dolphins were among his projects, as well as Erman; New York’s Roulette Records also employed him for the Gifts’ “It’s Uncle Willie,” “Treat Her Right,” and “Girl I Love You.”
Pate entered the world in Chicago Heights, Illinois, in 1923 and acquired facility on both piano and tuba during childhood. Military service later introduced him to the bass and to the craft of arranging. In the 1940s he performed with Coleridge Davis and Stuff Smith; throughout the 1950s he served as staff arranger for the house band at Club Delisa. As leader of the Johnny Pate Quintet he recorded for Federal and scored a Billboard R&B hit when “Swinging Shepherd Blues” reached number 17 in spring 1958. Seeking a distinctive sonic identity for OKeh, producer and A&R director Carl Davis recruited Pate in the early 1960s to craft arrangements for Walter Jackson, Major Lance, Ted Taylor, and the Opals.
January 1963 marked Pate’s first collaboration with Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions on the ethereal ballad “Sad Sad Girl and Boy,” which registered mid-chart on Cashbox. The follow-up, the exuberant “It’s All Right,” held the top R&B slot for two weeks and climbed to number four pop in autumn 1963. Subsequent releases included “Talking About My Baby,” “I’m So Proud,” and “Keep on Pushing,” while the album Keep on Pushing attained number eight on the pop listings in fall 1964. Most of these sessions took place at Murray Allen’s renowned Universal Recording Studios in Chicago.
The Impressions’ achievements prompted ABC-Paramount, their parent label, to establish a Chicago branch at 14th and Michigan and to name Pate A&R director in 1964. Among the artists he brought aboard were the Marvelows, whose “I Do”—penned by Melvin Mason, Johnny Paden, Frank Paden, Willie Stephenson, and Jesse Smith—reached number seven R&B and later became a number 24 pop hit for the J. Geils Band in autumn 1982; “In the Morning” also charted. Additional signings through the Chicago office encompassed the Trends, the Kittens, and ex-Vee-Jay star Betty Everett with “Nothing I Wouldn’t Do.”
Further Impressions successes followed: “You Must Believe,” the double-sided “Amen”—featured in the 1965 Sidney Poitier film Lillies of the Field—paired with “Long Long Winter,” the two-sided “People Get Ready” (number three R&B) backed by “I’ve Been Trying,” “Women’s Got Soul” (number nine R&B), “Meeting Over Yonder,” “I Need You” b/w “Never Could You Be,” “You Been Cheatin’,” the Motown-inflected “Can’t Satisfy,” “You Always Hurt Me,” “You Got Me Runnin’,” “I Can’t Stay Away From You,” “We’re a Winner” (number one R&B), during whose fade the group’s manager Eddie Thomas’s wife Audrey Thomas exclaims “all right now, sock it to me baby,” “We’re Rollin’ on (Part 1),” and the striking “I Love and I Lost” (number nine R&B).
In 1968 Pate began supplying arrangements for Curtis Mayfield’s Curtom imprint—whose slogan read “Were a Winner”—whose roster featured Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions alongside the Five Stairsteps. He departed the label in 1972 and subsequently contributed to numerous projects, among them the 1978 quiet-storm precursor Words and Music by stage, screen, and television performer Lonette McKee (Malcolm X, Which Way Is Up, Sparkle) on Warner Bros.
Pate’s handiwork appears across recordings by Curtis Mayfield, B.B. King, Phyllis Hyman, Peabo Bryson, Wes Montgomery, Walter Jackson, Stan Getz, Gene Chandler, Gil Scott-Heron, Joe Williams, Sam Cooke, the Staple Singers, Jimmy Smith, Jerry Butler, Shirley Horn, Phil Wood, the Bee Gees, Bill Doggett, James Moody, Kenny Burrell, Earl Bostic, Muddy Waters, and the compilations Mission Accomplished, Too: More Themes and The Best of Shaft.
Pate entered the world in Chicago Heights, Illinois, in 1923 and acquired facility on both piano and tuba during childhood. Military service later introduced him to the bass and to the craft of arranging. In the 1940s he performed with Coleridge Davis and Stuff Smith; throughout the 1950s he served as staff arranger for the house band at Club Delisa. As leader of the Johnny Pate Quintet he recorded for Federal and scored a Billboard R&B hit when “Swinging Shepherd Blues” reached number 17 in spring 1958. Seeking a distinctive sonic identity for OKeh, producer and A&R director Carl Davis recruited Pate in the early 1960s to craft arrangements for Walter Jackson, Major Lance, Ted Taylor, and the Opals.
January 1963 marked Pate’s first collaboration with Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions on the ethereal ballad “Sad Sad Girl and Boy,” which registered mid-chart on Cashbox. The follow-up, the exuberant “It’s All Right,” held the top R&B slot for two weeks and climbed to number four pop in autumn 1963. Subsequent releases included “Talking About My Baby,” “I’m So Proud,” and “Keep on Pushing,” while the album Keep on Pushing attained number eight on the pop listings in fall 1964. Most of these sessions took place at Murray Allen’s renowned Universal Recording Studios in Chicago.
The Impressions’ achievements prompted ABC-Paramount, their parent label, to establish a Chicago branch at 14th and Michigan and to name Pate A&R director in 1964. Among the artists he brought aboard were the Marvelows, whose “I Do”—penned by Melvin Mason, Johnny Paden, Frank Paden, Willie Stephenson, and Jesse Smith—reached number seven R&B and later became a number 24 pop hit for the J. Geils Band in autumn 1982; “In the Morning” also charted. Additional signings through the Chicago office encompassed the Trends, the Kittens, and ex-Vee-Jay star Betty Everett with “Nothing I Wouldn’t Do.”
Further Impressions successes followed: “You Must Believe,” the double-sided “Amen”—featured in the 1965 Sidney Poitier film Lillies of the Field—paired with “Long Long Winter,” the two-sided “People Get Ready” (number three R&B) backed by “I’ve Been Trying,” “Women’s Got Soul” (number nine R&B), “Meeting Over Yonder,” “I Need You” b/w “Never Could You Be,” “You Been Cheatin’,” the Motown-inflected “Can’t Satisfy,” “You Always Hurt Me,” “You Got Me Runnin’,” “I Can’t Stay Away From You,” “We’re a Winner” (number one R&B), during whose fade the group’s manager Eddie Thomas’s wife Audrey Thomas exclaims “all right now, sock it to me baby,” “We’re Rollin’ on (Part 1),” and the striking “I Love and I Lost” (number nine R&B).
In 1968 Pate began supplying arrangements for Curtis Mayfield’s Curtom imprint—whose slogan read “Were a Winner”—whose roster featured Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions alongside the Five Stairsteps. He departed the label in 1972 and subsequently contributed to numerous projects, among them the 1978 quiet-storm precursor Words and Music by stage, screen, and television performer Lonette McKee (Malcolm X, Which Way Is Up, Sparkle) on Warner Bros.
Pate’s handiwork appears across recordings by Curtis Mayfield, B.B. King, Phyllis Hyman, Peabo Bryson, Wes Montgomery, Walter Jackson, Stan Getz, Gene Chandler, Gil Scott-Heron, Joe Williams, Sam Cooke, the Staple Singers, Jimmy Smith, Jerry Butler, Shirley Horn, Phil Wood, the Bee Gees, Bill Doggett, James Moody, Kenny Burrell, Earl Bostic, Muddy Waters, and the compilations Mission Accomplished, Too: More Themes and The Best of Shaft.
Albums
