* En anglais uniquement
Arkansas-based
Earl and
Ernie Cate were prolific songwriters and singers who blended the blues with elements of rock & roll, country and rockabilly. Pianist/vocalist
Ernie and guitarist/vocalist
Earl signed to Asylum Records in 1975; their self-titled debut, issued shortly after, included appearances by
Donald "Duck" Dunn,
Steve Cropper, former
Band drummer
Levon Helm, and former
Eagle and
Poco member Timothy B. Schmidt. They followed up their debut in 1976 with
In One Eye and Out the Other, trailed in 1977 by The Cate Brothers Band. Spurred by the success of the single "Union Man," 1979's
Fire on the Tracks reached number 24 on the album rock charts in 1976.
Despite a dearth of recordings through the 1980s, the band remained a popular touring act in Tennessee, Arkansas and other strongholds of country rock and blues around the South. In the early '80s,
Earl and
Ernie joined
Helm and others to form a reconstructed version of
the Band, which by that point had lost guitarist
Robbie Robertson; aside from touring with
Helm, they also collaborated with blues singer
Maria Muldaur.
The Cate Brothers continued recording into the 1990s; in 1995, they issued Radioland, a unique hybrid of pop-oriented blues-rock, Stax-era soul-blues and country-rock on which they were joined by former
John Mayall blues guitar phenom
Coco Montoya. A new album, Play by the Rules, was released in 2004. ~ Richard Skelly