harlan Kirgan
At 60 years old cs energetic style suggests there is a correction in order for those birthdays.
Pate was at the Eunice City Hall on Monday to help promote his concert at LSUE on Friday.
The scholarship fundraising gig sounded like an easy evening for a guy who tallied up four concerts on a Friday and Saturday in Texas. The play sites ranged from near Austin and to around Houston.
The concert at LSUE, which is to begin at 6:45 p.m. at the Health Technology building, will include classic country, gospel, swamp pop, blues and jazz.
“Crossroads,” his last CD, hits the classic country sweet spots as Pate sings about love, drinking, love of country, good times and bad times.
“My last album I recorded, “Crossroads,” is basically a country album ...” he said.
“Actually I’m going in next month to cut a full-blown blues record, but I’m a country guy really. That’s my roots,” he said.
Pate is no stranger to South Louisiana or Texas from a fan standpoint or personally.
He lived in Acadiana for about 30 years and worked with locally famous names such as Wayne Toups, Tommy McClain, Lee Benoit and even the late Gov. Jimmie Davis.
“Fortunately, I get to play it all when people come to see us live. I’ve done everything from George Jones to BB King,” he said.
“We try to do a big variety of music so we are not alienating nobody,” he added.
“I just love music, so all of that kind of filters into what I do as well,” he said.
Pate was on his first album in 1985 and there was a 25-year period where he did not record, he said.
It was a period when he was “just working.”
He now hopes to do a recording every year.
“The deal with recording is it is forever,” he said.
After a quadruple bypass operation, Pate said he didn’t smoke for six or eight weeks, but he resumed and if “Crossroads” is any indication, his voice is seasoned with smoke and distilled from a life experienced.
“I still got a pretty good range considering my age and I smoke,” he said.
“As far as the longevity, I don’t know. I’ll let you know when it is over,” he said.
“I know I’ve never been allowed the luxuries like some of these bigger artists,” Pate said. There’s no tour bus to hang out in for hours to rest the voice or following strict diets, he said.
“I’ve got to do business,” he said in recalling his three-concert Saturday in Texas.
Pates said he plays the guitar, bass, drums, piano, steel guitar, banjo and mandolin.
“I’m not a banjo player, but I can play banjo,” he said.
Pate said he was raised in Los Angeles by his grandparents and started performing when he was 4 or 5 years old.
When he was 8, he was working six nights a week.
Pate can claim more than five decades working in the music business.
His online biography states, “I played shows with some of the greats, Buck, Merle, Paycheck, Lefty and many more ....”
He moved from Los Angeles in 1974 as a 17-year-old musician.
Pate stated he was an opening act for Ronnie Milsap, Willie Nelson, Johnny Rodriguez, Eddie Rabbit, Alabama, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, David Alan Coe, George Jones, Conway Twitty and Ray Price.
“In 1990 I moved and spent the next 30 years in Southwest Louisiana, so we may have crossed paths as I’ve played coast to coast, border to border and halfway around the world as a member of Wayne Toups and Zydecajun. Working with Wayne on several album projects and touring with the boys has been one of the funnest times in my musical career,” Pate wrote.
On Friday at LSUE, “They are going to hear some swamp pop, they are going to hear some Fifties music and they are going to hear some gospel music and they are going to hear some country music,” he said.
There will be nine or 10 band members. “It’s a big band. It’s a big show,” he said.
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LSUE Performing Arts, along with Experience Louisiana and CLECO are presenting Freddie Pate in concert on at 6:45 p.m. Friday in the auditorium of the Health Tech building (nurses building).
All proceeds go to the LSUE Foundation scholarship fund. Tickets are $10 and available at the door, at the mayor’s office in Ciyt Hall or by calling Donna Baltakis at 337-457-1510.
CDs will also be on sale that evening.
Donations are welcomed.