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Otago Daily Times
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
Obituary: Jerry Butler, musician
Jerry Butler on 10 August, 1980 in Chicago. Soul star Jerry Butler's musical talents eclipsed those of many of his contemporaries, musicians who he spent much of his latter life helping. The son of Mississippi sharecroppers, Butler was raised in Chicago and worshipped at the Travelling Souls Spiritualist Church, presided over by the Rev A.B. Mayfield. The preacher's grandson, Curtis Mayfield, and Butler, were part of The Impressions, a vocal group which had a big local hit with For Your Precious Love, but who fell out because the record company renamed the group Jerry Butler and the Impressions. Butler, still regularly working with Mayfield, went solo: hits included I've Been Loving You Too Long (with Otis Redding) and Only the Strong Survive, later covered by Elvis Presley. As his music career faded out Butler went into local politics and served more than 30 years on the Cook County Board. He also chaired the Rhythm & Blues Foundation, which offers assistance to musicians, and pushed the industry to provide medical and retirement benefits. Jerry "The Ice Man" Butler died on February 20 aged 85. — APL/agencies
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Jerry Butler, Impressions singer known as ‘the Ice Man' who went on to forge a career in Chicago politics
Jerry Butler, the soul singer and songwriter, who has died aged 85, was known as 'the Ice Man' thanks to his smooth baritone voice and cool delivery; he had 55 US chart entries over the years, releasing his first record in 1958 and his last in 1994 – by which time he was nearly a decade into his second career, as a local politician in Chicago. While songs he co-wrote were covered by singers including Elvis Presley, Rod Stewart, Bruce Springsteen, Dusty Springfield and Aretha Franklin, Butler saw less UK chart action, though he did command a loyal British following. Jerry Butler was born in Sunflower, Mississippi, on December 8 1939; his parents, Jerry Snr and Arvelia, were sharecroppers. Fleeing segregation and racial violence, they joined the exodus of African Americans heading north, and in 1942 they settled in a housing project in Chicago. Young Jerry sang in church, where his distinctive voice attracted attention – not least from another youngster, the guitar-playing Curtis Mayfield; they formed the Northern Jubilee Gospel Singers and began writing secular songs together. As the Roosters, then the Impressions, the teenagers signed to Vee-Jay Records, a Black-owned label focusing on blues and R'n'B. Their debut single, For Your Precious Love, written by the pair, was a strikingly mature work for a teenage outfit, Butler's mellifluous voice caressing a love ballad which had begun life as a poem when he was 16. The song, which went gold, was credited to Jerry Butler and the Impressions – which led to some friction between Butler and Mayfield, especially when it reached Top 5 in the R&B charts. But Mayfield stuck around for a while and the pair continued working together. He would go on to lead the Impressions to huge success before enjoying an even bigger solo career in the 1970s. Butler continued as a successful solo act: He Will Break Your Heart topped the R&B charts in 1960 and reached Top Ten in the pop charts, while his cover of Moon River reached No 11 in 1961 (it was the only version to make the Top 40). In 1962 he was the first singer to record the Bacharach-David song Make it Easy on Yourself , later a worldwide hit for the Walker Brothers. His duets with Betty Everett on Let it Be Me and Smile did well with pop audiences, but his most successful year was 1968, when he teamed up with the Philadelphia International production and songwriting team, creators of the Philly Sound. Never Give You Up; Hey, Western Union Man and Only the Strong Survive – all Butler co-writes – were huge crossover hits and remain soul anthems to this day. His album of that year, The Ice Man Cometh, is a superb example of the dynamic yet subtle R&B of which Butler was a master: he always crooned, never screamed, conveying profound emotion while always sounding in control. In 1965 he co-wrote I've Been Loving You Too Long with Otis Redding, who went on to make it a show-stopper. Butler carried on working, but by the 1980s his chart presence was fading, and after his 1983 US tour with Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions – the old friends reuniting to sing the songs that had made them famous – he decided to change direction. In 1985 he was elected as Board Commissioner for Cook County, which includes the city of Chicago, remaining in public office until 2018. He did, though, continue to perform and occasionally record, and gained a BA and MA in political science and music history from Governors State University in Illinois. 'I'm always prejudiced when I talk about Chicago because I think it's such a great city,' Butler said. 'Most of what's done in this city is prompted by politics and most of black politics is supported by music. And so the music and politics kind of walk hand in hand down Michigan Avenue.' Butler's autobiography, Only The Strong Survive, was published in 2004. In recent years he had been suffering from Parkinson's disease. Jerry Butler's wife Annette, whom he married in 1959, died in 2019; he is survived by their two sons. Jerry Butler, born December 8 1939, died February 20 2025 Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
The Guardian
23-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Jerry Butler obituary
When a Philadelphia radio disc jockey gave the young Jerry Butler the nickname of 'the Iceman', it was in recognition of the singer's avoidance of on-stage histrionics rather than any lack of warmth in his polished but ardent delivery. Butler, who has died aged 85, had hits across three decades, with records that spanned the evolution of African-American popular music, from the gospel-influenced doo-wop of For Your Precious Love, aimed at the teenagers of the 1950s, through the suave balladry of Moon River and Make It Easy on Yourself in the 60s, to the sophisticated boudoir soul of I Want to Do It to You in the 70s. There was a background to his unruffled demeanour. In his 2004 autobiography, titled Only the Strong Survive: Memoirs of a Soul Survivor, Butler gave credit to a teacher in the fifth grade at his elementary school in Chicago. Her name was Ernestine Curry and she taught 'maths, English, history, music, etiquette and how to box'. She also told her class of 11-year-olds about such great figures from Black history as Nat Turner, who led a slave rebellion in Virginia in 1831, the world heavyweight champion boxer Jack Johnson and the jazz composer and bandleader Duke Ellington, while getting them to read the works of the historian WEB DuBois and the poet and novelist Countee Cullen. 'Mrs Curry gave us a sense of pride and dignity that has carried me and many other of her students through life,' Butler said. In later life Butler went into politics. He took a master's degree in political science and became a commissioner for Cook County, whose county seat is Chicago, serving on the 17-member board from 1985 to 2018. His place in the affection of soul fans was retained long after the end of his recording career. When Bruce Springsteen released a collection of cover versions of soul classics in 2022, he included two of Butler's best known songs: Only the Strong Survive, which gave the album its title, and Hey, Western Union Man,. Butler was born in Sunflower County, Mississippi, where his parents picked cotton as sharecroppers. He was aged three when the family became part of the Great Migration, moving to Chicago. His father, Jerry Sr, worked two jobs to feed the family, for the city's sanitation and streets department and for the Illinois Central Railroad. His mother, Arvelia (nee Agnew), took her children – two girls and two boys – to worship and sing at the Church of God in Christ. Every Sunday morning they listened to the three-hour sermons of the Rev Annie Bell Mayfield, whose grandson Curtis was a contemporary and became a friend. Butler was soon joining Annie Bell Mayfield's Travelling Souls Spiritualist gospel caravan, touring throughout the US in his school holidays as a member of a group called the Northern Jubilee Singers and experiencing at first hand the sounds of the great gospel groups of the time, including the Blind Boys of Alabama and the Soul Stirrers, with Sam Cooke. Butler was 14 when his father died suddenly of a heart attack, forcing him to begin taking night jobs in factories to help the family's finances while attending Washburne Trade School, where he trained to become a chef. It was seeing Nat King Cole in a Chicago nightclub that showed the teenaged Butler the kind of performer he aspired to be. In 1956 he stopped going to church and started singing with his first R&B group, a quartet called the Quails. After they split up, he and Mayfield got together to form a group that became the Impressions. For their first single, released on a local label, Butler and two of the other members of the group, Richard and Arthur Brooks, wrote a ballad called For Your Precious Love. Its blend of doo-wop cadences, gospel harmonies and Butler's pleading vocal not only gave them a Top 20 hit but induced the audience at the Apollo in Harlem to call the young men back for three encores of the same song. Two years later, having been persuaded by the record company to pursue a solo career, Butler achieved even greater success – No 1 in the R&B chart, No 7 in the pop chart – with the lovelorn He Will Break Your Heart, co-written with the record's producer, Calvin Carter, and Mayfield, who also sang the distinctive high harmony part on the chorus. Mayfield and the Impressions would go on to greater things, but Butler's subsequent career burned on an intermittent flame. He was the first to record the Henry Mancini-Johnny Mercer song Moon River in 1961, but saw it become a bigger hit for Andy Williams. A year later his version of Make It Easy on Yourself, by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, was also the first to be released. In 1964 his swooning duet with Betty Everett on Gilbert Bécaud's Let It Be Me, with an English lyric by Manny Curtis, reached the top five. In 1965 he and Otis Redding wrote I've Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now), a ballad that might have been the sequel to For Your Precious Love. It became one of Redding's early hits and was covered by many other artists, accruing royalties that Butler claimed outstripped all his other earnings put together. In the late 60s he teamed up with Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, the gifted and ambitious Philadelphia-based songwriters and producers, for a string of heavily arranged hits that included Hey, Western Union Man, Only the Strong Survive and Moody Woman, and several albums, such as The Iceman Cometh and Ice on Ice, whose titles exploited the nickname bestowed upon him many years earlier. He made frequent appearances as the host of oldies shows on television and served a term as the chairman of the Rhythm and Blues Foundation, a charity set up to provide belated support for black artists unfairly treated by the music business. In 1991 he and the four other original Impressions were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His brother Billy, a singer and guitarist with whom Butler ran a workshop for young artists, died in 2015. His wife, Annette (nee Smith), whom he married in 1959 and who had been one of his backing singers, died in 2019. He is survived by their twin sons, Randall and Anthony, four grandchildren, and a great-grandchild. Jerry Butler, singer and politician, born 8 December 1939; died 20 February 2025
USA Today
21-02-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Jerry Butler, Impressions singer known as the Iceman, dies at 85: Reports
Jerry Butler, Impressions singer known as the Iceman, dies at 85: Reports Jerry Butler, cofounder of the Impressions and baritone singer/songwriter known for hits such as "For Your Precious Love" and "Only The Strong Survive," has reportedly died. He was 85. The soul musician, who earned two Grammy nods in his lifetime, died Thursday at his Chicago home, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, The New York Times and The Washington Post. The Post and the Sun-Times cited Butler's family members, while the Times received confirmation from his assistant. They reported he had been living with Parkinson's disease. A representative for Illinois' Cook County, which includes Chicago, mourned the passing of the "dedicated public servant," who served on the Cook County Board of Commissioners for three decades. "I am deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Jerry 'The Iceman' Butler, a legendary artist, dedicated public servant, and beloved member of our Cook County community," Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said in a statement shared with USA TODAY Friday. His "contributions to music and public service are immeasurable. As a founding member of The Impressions, his distinguished voice helped shape the sound of R&B and soul, leaving an indelible mark on American music. "Jerry Butler was more than a musical icon," Preckwinkle's statement continued. "As a Cook County Commissioner from 1985 to 2018, he worked tirelessly to expand healthcare access, improve infrastructure, and advocate for policies that strengthened our communities. His leadership as Chair of the Health and Hospitals Committee helped ensure that critical resources reached those in need." From the Impressions to 'The Iceman' The Missouri-born talent was 3 years old when his parents — who were sharecroppers, according to the Sun-Times and the Post — moved the family to Chicago as part of what's now known as the Great Migration. In the late 1950s, he formed the Impressions with his childhood church friend Curtis Mayfield, who died in 1999. They'd originally set out on a musical venture with a doo-wop group called the Roosters in 1957. Alongside members Sam Gooden, Richard Brooks and Art Brooks, the following year they signed with a local music label, Vee-Jay Records. Branded as Jerry Butler & the Impressions, they released their debut single, 'For Your Precious Love,' and "Come Back My Love" together. While the Impressions – with Fred Cash on board – went on to become the "sound of the civil rights movement" per the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Butler struck out on his own as a solo artist in 1960. The split was reportedly rooted in tensions surrounding his name being top billed in the group's marketing. Butler then released 1960's "He Will Break Your Heart," cowritten with Mayfield, which rose up the Billboard charts and earned him a No. 7 spot on the Hot 100. It also spent seven weeks in the top spot on the R&B charts. Over the course of his career, two more of his songs – the Betty Everett duet "Let It Be Me" as well as his collaboration with songwriters Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff "Only The Strong Survive" – charted in the Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, with a total 38 tracks making it on the list throughout his career. "Only the Strong Survive" became Butler's highest-charting hit, per Billboard, and went on to be covered by the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Presley and Rod Stewart. Along the way, Butler also picked up the nickname "The Iceman," a descriptor for his understated nature that is largely attributed to Philadelphia-based DJ Georgie Woods. In 1991, Butler was inducted along with the other members of the Impressions into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. How Jerry Butler inspired Bruce Springsteen Speaking with the Asbury Park Press, part of the USA TODAY Network, in 2022, Springsteen revealed he had become a fan of Butler's due to his manager's recommendation, eventually naming his album after the 1960s hit. "I wasn't super familiar with Jerry Butler until I went searching for material for this record," Springsteen said of his 2022 album "Only the Strong Survive." "(Manager) Jon Landau was the huge Jerry Butler fan and he suggested 'Hey, Western Union Man,' and I said I don't know (it). I listened to it. It was kind of complicated and then I got into it really deeply," he said, adding that the record was going to be called either "Soul Days" of "Nightshift" before he was inspired to use the title of Butler's hit. "I'm thinking about doing another (record) and the next one I do I'm going to call 'Only the Strong Survive.' Jon said it's a great title; we've got to use that now," Springsteen said. "So I came back and spent the day, cut the song and through that I got introduced into more Jerry Butler stuff and I've cut more of his things since then."
Chicago Tribune
21-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Jerry ‘Iceman' Butler, former Cook County commissioner and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, dies at 85
Jerry 'The Iceman' Butler went from street-corner singing and belting out gospel songs in church to co-founding the popular vocal R&B group the Impressions, which was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1991. Although Butler's time in the Impressions only lasted a few years, he enjoyed many years of success afterward as a songwriter and as a solo singer with a rich, creamy smooth baritone voice, penning and performing numerous tunes that found success including 'He Will Break Your Heart,' 'Hey, Western Union Man' and 'Only the Strong Survive.' While Butler never fully abandoned music, he had a full life outside of it, running a beverage distribution business and serving as a Cook County Board member for 32 years, stepping down in 2018. Butler, 85, died of complications from Parkinson's disease on Feb. 20 at his home in the South Side's Douglas neighborhood, according to his assistant. Born in Sunflower, Mississippi, Butler moved to Chicago as a toddler and grew up in the Near North Side area that would later be the site for the Cabrini-Green Homes. From a young age he sang both in church and in street-corner doo-wop groups. One of his closest companions was Curtis Mayfield, who went on to become an influential soul musician known as the 'Gentle Genius.' 'I met Curtis when he was maybe 8 or 9 years old. I must have been all of 11 or 12,' Butler told the Tribune in 1992. 'We sang gospel music together in his grandmother's church. And when the group that later became the Impressions was formed, when I thought about who we should have in this group, he was the only person that I thought about.' Butler trained to be a chef at Washburne Trade School for a few years, but music wouldn't let him go and in 1957, he got together with Mayfield, Sam Gooden and brothers Arthur and Richard Brooks to create the Impressions. The group auditioned for Calvin Carter at the Black-owned independent label Vee-Jay Records. One of the songs they auditioned was 'For Your Precious Love' — originally written by Butler as a poem for school — and Carter urged Butler to sing it, rather than recite it. Vee-Jay signed the group, and made the song its first single, and it became an immediate hit, selling 150,000 copies within the first two weeks of its release in 1958. Former Tribune critic Greg Kot in 1991 wrote that 'many regard 'For Your Precious Love' as the first true 'soul' record, forging a new style out of the blues, doo-wop and gospel music.' The band was short-lived, in part because its first record identified the act — incorrectly — as 'Jerry Butler and the Impressions.' 'Well, the Impressions were madder than all get-out and wanted to do terrible things to my head,' Butler later said. 'And I said, 'Fellas, I'm innocent. I don't know anything more about this than you do.' So we went and confronted (Vivian Carter, Vee-Jay's co-owner) with the question, and she said, 'We're not going to change it because we've already pressed up 50,000 records, and I'm not going to go back and reprint 50,000 label copies just to keep a bunch of little snot-nosed kids happy.'' Ultimately, Butler figured out that Carter's plan had been to spin off Butler as a solo artist and have two hitmakers: Butler on his own and the Impressions. Amid dissension, Butler left the Impressions in 1960 and embarked on a solo career, though not all feelings were bruised. He worked closely with Mayfield, co-writing songs such as Butler's first No. 1 R&B hit, 'He Will Break Your Heart.' On the Vee-Jay label, Butler recorded other Top 10 hits, such as 'Find Another Girl,' 'I'm a Telling You' and, with Betty Everett, 'Let It Be Me.' He also had a hit with 'Moon River,' before the late crooner Andy Williams made it his theme song. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Butler worked with two young Philadelphia songwriters and producers, Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, and the result was a string of his hits including 'Never Give You Up,' 'Hey, Western Union Man,' 'What's the Use of Breaking Up,' 'Ain't Understanding Mellow' and 'Only the Strong Survive.' Butler's vocals stood out — including a moan that lingered and dragged a step or two behind the beat — and rendered him so cool that a Philadelphia disc jockey nicknamed him 'The Iceman.' In 1985, he was featured with Aretha Franklin in a commercial for McDonald's McDLT — she liked it hot, he liked it cool. Butler was a partner in two beer-distribution companies, starting in the 1970s. His interest in politics, which led him to seek a Cook County Board seat in 1985, stemmed in part from the racism that he and his bandmates had encountered. 'Here we were young performers who really thought we had arrived. Our records were being played on Black and white radio stations all over the United States. And still we were being treated as second-class citizens,' he told the Tribune in 1992. 'That was one of the things that really said to me and the others (in the Impressions) that this is terribly wrong, and what can we do with all of this fame and notoriety that's going at us this early in life to try and change some things? 'So we got involved in the political process. We got involved in helping to attract audiences for other political people to speak. We got involved in movements, and we participated even in the sit-ins in the South. We became spokesmen for the people. So I think that kind of gives you an idea of why I'm so political.' In seeking the Democratic nomination for a Cook County Board seat, Butler told supporters that he wanted to see the county award more contracts to minority businesses. 'I know needing and I know wanting, but I also know caring and sharing, and that is what I intend to take to the Cook County Board as a commissioner,' he told supporters in November 1985. Butler, who continued to occasionally perform while on the board, chaired the Law Enforcement and Corrections Committee and later the Health and Hospitals Committee. A longtime ally of then-Cook County Board President John Stroger and later of Stroger's son, Todd, Butler emerged early on as a proponent of changing the way board members were elected, from at-large berths to single-member districts. He also endorsed building a new Cook County Hospital and was an early promoter of the county's eventual decision to buy the troubled Provident Medical Center. Initially, Butler rejected the idea of renovating the old Cook County Hospital building for other uses. 'I came to this board 16 years ago and the building on Harrison Street was an old raggedy piece of junk,' he told the Tribune in 2003. 'In the last few minutes it has been uplifted to the point of the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower.' The old hospital building now is a mixed-use development, including a Hyatt Hotel. 'Jerry Butler was more than a musical icon — he was a dedicated public servant who gave over three decades of his life to the residents of Cook County,' County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said in a statement. 'As a Cook County Commissioner from 1985 to 2018, he worked tirelessly to expand healthcare access, improve infrastructure and advocate for policies that strengthened our communities.' Butler earned a degree in political science in 1993 from Governors State University. He also was active in the Rhythm and Blues Foundation as it worked to provide assistance to musicians, as well as serving as the lead plaintiff in a battle the foundation waged with the record industry over health and retirement benefits previously denied to long-ago recording artists. Butler stepped down from the Cook County Board in 2018. Butler published autobiography, 'Only the Strong Survive: Memoirs of a Soul Survivor,' in 2000. He made clear he had no regrets about a music career that was successful but never reached the the heights of better-known names. 'That's like saying if I was born rich I'd be so much better off,' he told the Tribune in 1991. 'I never regretted who I am. I've been so greatly blessed that it's hard to say I've been cheated. It's like Frank Sinatra said a few weeks ago at an awards ceremony I attended. He got a standing ovation and then he said, 'That was more than I expected…' then he winked… 'but not as much as I deserve.' That's how I feel about my life: More than I expected, but maybe not as much as I deserve. Because who really gets all that they think they deserve?' Butler's wife of 60 years, Annette, died in 2019. Survivors include twin sons Anthony and Randall. Information on other survivors was not immediately available. A service tentatively is planned for March 8 at Fellowship Chicago Church, 4543 S. Princeton Ave.
