Music

Cate Brothers to reunite for rare Little Rock gig

The Cate Brothers Band are (from left) Earl and Ernie Cate.
The Cate Brothers Band are (from left) Earl and Ernie Cate.

Bands form and break up. But it's understandably harder for a band of brothers, especially twin brothers, to permanently break up.

So it appears to be with Arkansas' Cate Brothers -- guitarist Earl and keyboardist Ernie -- who started performing in Northwest Arkansas in the mid-1960s, going on to record nine albums, while scoring a hit single with "Union Man" in 1979. The band did a number of official retirement shows in late 2006, including one at Cajun's Wharf in Little Rock and culminating with a New Year's Eve performance at the Basin Park Hotel in Eureka Springs.

The Cate Brothers

7 p.m. Friday, CALS Ron Robinson Theater, 100 River Market Ave., Little Rock

Admission: $20

(501) 918-3033 arkansassounds.org

And then, the band members went their separate ways, sort of. Occasional shows were done close to home, and Earl carried on with his band, Earl & Them, which still comes to central Arkansas. But little was seen or heard hereabouts of Ernie, the band's lead singer, until news came of a "reunion" show Friday at Ron Robinson Theater.

Fans wondered, "What's up with that?"

"They asked me to come and play," Ernie says, laughing. "I slowed down, but every once in a while something fun comes up, and it's still fun to do it. We throw in all the stuff we like to play, songs like 'Am I Losing You' and 'Union Man,' of course."

The brothers -- usually featuring Earl on blazing electric guitar solos and Ernie on soulful lead vocals -- could have pursued superstardom long ago by moving to Los Angeles or Nashville or Austin, but have held tight to their Ozarks roots, preferring life in the slow lane, although life in Northwest Arkansas has picked up speed considerably in recent years.

"Earl and I were raised on a farm," Ernie says, "and we started out playing country music and going to square dances and so on, but when we discovered the Everly Brothers and R&B music, we went off in a different direction, I guess you could say."

And unlike the Everlys -- and such other brother teams as Ray and Dave Davies of The Kinks and Liam and Noel Gallagher of Oasis -- the Cates have maintained an even keel, finding no reason to fuss and fight, and certainly not on stage.

"We've never had any problems," says Earl Cate with a laugh. "We still get together and work on new songs and may go out and play as the Cate Brothers several times a year. We do just enough that Ernie seems to still enjoy it. There's a club in Topeka [Kan.] where he likes to play.

"People still get confused at times when they see me playing and we call it Earl & Them, and they ask where's Ernie, or where's the other brother or something.

"We're having fun, Ernie and I, when we go out and play a show somewhere. It all comes back, like knowing how to roller skate."

Ernie notes that he may have been the first to "retire," as it were, but he is the younger brother.

"Earl is older by eight minutes," he says.

And the brothers will not be coming alone.

Earl & Them's drummer and bassist, Terry Cagle and John Davies respectively, will join the Cates. Both have previous stints in the lineup -- Cagle is the nephew of the late Levon Helm and resembles his uncle, vocally and physically. Davies played with the Cates before joining the band of Camden bluesman Michael Burks, and remained until Burks' sudden death in May 2012.

The Cate Brothers' band will also include saxophonist David Renko, whose career was briefly sidetracked in the early 1980s by an Alcohol Beverage Control agent who refused to let a young Renko take the stage of the old S.O.B. club as the front man of the Fort Smith band David & the Immatures. The agent was not aware of the so-called Art Porter Law, which allowed youthful performers in a nightclub if they were accompanied by a parent or guardian. Both of Renko's parents, Dick and Suzanne Renko, were in the band.

Weekend on 11/19/2015

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