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By Dan Leone

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THE THING ABOUT Howard Tate is that he was this shadowy figure of New Orleans soul who sang "Get It While You Can," later made famous by Janis Joplin. He recorded that beautiful, utterly human song and a bunch of others (try "Ain't Nobody Home" and "Look at Granny Run Run") until the late '70s, when he just disappeared. I first heard of him through a collection called Get It While You Can: The Legendary Sessions. The liner notes said no one knew where Tate was and hadn't for like 20 years. Nobody knew whether he was alive or dead or walking around talking to ghosts, and because people had been searching for him for so long with no luck, the consensus was that he was probably dead. Two years ago he finally turned up in New Jersey, where one of the guys from Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes recognized him in a grocery store. The now Rev. Howard Tate was surprised to learn that not only had people been searching for him but in fact a huge mystique had also risen around his disappearance, so he began performing again. My friends saw him in a tiny bar in New Orleans, and at the end of the set Tate hugged everyone in the room, one by one. I saw him last year at Sweetwater's, and by all accounts the man is positively electric. Seeing him is no different from seeing Otis or Sam Cooke – this is soul music, and Tate is one of the last true soul singers alive. Roy Tyler and New Direction also perform. 8 p.m., 333 11th St., S.F. $15. (415) 522-0333. (Mike McGuirk)