Johnny Pate is an important figure in Chicago soul as well as pop/R&B music as a Music arranger/producer. History Born in Chicago Heights, IL, in 1923, Pate learned to play piano and tuba as a child. Later while serving in the Army, he picked up the bass and learned arranging. He had stints with Coleridge Davis and Stuff Smith in the '40s. During the '50s, he was the resident arranger for the in-house band of Club Delisa. Recording for Federal as the Johnny Pate Quintet, the bandleader/arranger/bassist had a hit with "Swinging Shepherd Blues," which hit number 17 R&B on Billboard's charts in spring 1958. In the early '60s, OKeh Records producer/A&R director Carl Davis (Walter Jackson, Major Lance, Ted Taylor, the Opals) wanted a unique sound and enlisted Pate to write arrangements for the label. Impressions era Pate and Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions first teamed in January 1963 record

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