Search - Baby Tate :: See What You Done Done

Classic Piedmont Blues

B. D. Tutt | London, UK. | 10/13/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Bluesville scoured the South in the early 1960s searching both for recording artists of the 1920s / 1930s now living in obscurity (such as Furry Lewis, Pink Anderson, Scrapper Blackwell and Lonnie Johnson) and for previously unrecorded blues talent. Baby Tate comes into the latter category.Tate, born in Georgia in 1916 but raised in Greenville South Carolina, was located in Spartanberg SC by Samuel Charters in 1961. Influenced by Blind Boy Fuller and Pink Anderson, Tate played beautiful blues in the intricate ragtime influenced Piedmont tradition. Highlights include "Truckin' Them Blues Away" and "Dupree Blues".Tate died of a heart attack in 1970 having recorded material for Trix which was never released. This album is currently his major legacy, and shows him to have been a highly gifted player whose early death was a tragedy. One word of warning - like many Bluesville discs there is only 35 minutes of music here. On this occasion, it doesn't matter. These twelve tracks of acoustic solo are better than a hours' music from many of the overhyped amplified "blues legends" of today.Strongly recommended."

Under Rated, Unknown Gem

Vic | Himalayas, India | 07/07/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This album has a unique ability of connecting you with a time that one thought was not able to capture beyond the 20s and 30s blues. though recorded in 1961, it is so removed from the becomings of post-war blues. The album sleeve makes says about similarity with Blind Boy Fuller and Pink Anderson, which one might or might not want to contest; but the finger picking is so not 60s blues - which in all its new found chicago flavours had transformed into some kind of flamboyant, indulgant, strident 'party songs' that went by the pseudonym of blues.

If you are looking for pure music, even from a non puritanical point of view, this album wont disappoint you."