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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.
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.
Los Angeles Times
21-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Jerry Butler, R&B singer and early leader of the Impressions, dies at 85
Jerry Butler, who found R&B stardom in the late 1950s as the first lead singer of the Impressions before moving on to a solo career and a second life in Chicago politics, died Thursday. He was 85. His death was reported by the Chicago Sun-Times, which cited a family friend and said that Butler (who had Parkinson's disease) died at his home. Nicknamed 'The Iceman,' Butler sang in a coolly knowing baritone that hinted at the passions of church and romance while putting across a sense of reassurance that here was a guy who knew what to do in any given situation. Among his dozens of hits — many of which he co-wrote — were the Impressions' debut single, 'For Your Precious Love'; 'He Will Break Your Heart'; 'Make It Easy on Yourself'; 'Let It Be Me'; and 'Only the Strong Survive,' which reached No. 4 on Billboard's Hot 100 in 1969 and inspired subsequent renditions by Elvis Presley, Skeeter Davis, Billy Paul, Rod Stewart and Bruce Springsteen, among others. In 1970, 'Only the Strong Survive' was nominated for R&B song at the Grammy Awards, while Butler's album 'The Ice Man Cometh' — produced by Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, architects of the lush Philly soul sound — received a nod for best R&B vocal performance. Butler put more than 50 songs on Billboard's R&B chart, including 18 in the Top 10. As a member of the Impressions — which he formed with his adolescent friend Curtis Mayfield, who took over as the group's lead singer when Butler left in 1960 — Butler was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, half a decade after he was elected to a spot on the Cook County Board of Commissioners. He held the position until he retired in 2018. Butler was born to sharecropper parents on Dec. 8, 1939, in Sunflower, Miss., and moved at age 3 with his family to Chicago. He and Mayfield sang together in church and toured as members of a gospel outfit before starting the Impressions. The group scored a deal with Vee-Jay Records in 1958 and released 'For Your Precious Love,' which Otis Redding and Jackie Wilson later covered. After leaving the Impressions in Mayfield's care — the group went on to help soundtrack the civil rights movement with such songs as 'Keep on Pushing' and 'People Get Ready' — Butler topped the R&B chart on his own with 'He Will Break Your Heart,' which he co-wrote with Mayfield and featured Mayfield on guitar and backing vocals. Butler reached No. 11 on the Hot 100 in 1961 with a debonair version of 'Moon River'; in 1965, he and Redding co-wrote 'I've Been Loving You Too Long,' which became a widely interpreted soul standard. By the end of the '60s, Butler had struck up a fruitful partnership with Gamble and Huff that presaged the success that duo would find in the '70s. Butler briefly reunited with the Impressions in the early '80s — Mayfield died in 1999 at age 57 — and he continued to perform amid his duties as a politician. His music was sampled by the likes of Method Man, J Dilla and Pusha T; Springsteen used 'Only the Strong Survive' as the title track for his 2022 R&B covers LP, which also included a take on Butler's 'Hey, Western Union Man.' Butler's wife Annette Butler, who sometimes performed with her husband, died in 2019. According to the Sun-Times, his survivors include their two sons, four grandchildren and a great-grandchild.
New York Times
21-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Jerry Butler, Singer Known as the Iceman, Dies at 85
Jerry Butler, the graceful singer and songwriter who served as the first leader of the Impressions before launching a long, hit-heavy solo career, died on Thursday at his home in Chicago. He was 85. His death was confirmed by his assistant, who said that Mr. Butler had Parkinson's disease. Mr. Butler's resounding baritone voice, though gritty in timbre, was animated by gentility and charm; he approached a lyric with an almost courtly level of sensitivity. His poise explained, in part, how he came to be known as the Iceman. Mr. Butler scored his first hit in 1958 with 'For Your Precious Love,' a song he recorded with the Impressions and wrote with two other members of the group. It reached No. 11 on Billboard's pop chart. Its lyrics stressed perseverance and loyalty, themes Mr. Butler would revisit throughout his career. Immediately after leaving the group in 1960, he reached the Billboard Top 10 with 'He Will Break Your Heart,' which he wrote with Mr. Mayfield and Calvin Carter. The song proved durable: A reworked version by Tony Orlando and Dawn, 'He Don't Love You (Like I Love You),' would become a No. 1 hit more than a decade later. Mr. Butler's version of 'Moon River,' the Henry Mancini-Johnny Mercer song from the movie 'Breakfast at Tiffany's,' climbed to No. 11 on the pop chart in 1961. The next year, his interpretation of Burt Bacharach and Hal David's 'Make It Easy on Yourself' reached No. 20. Two years later, he reached the Top 10 again with 'Let It Be Me,' a duet with Betty Everett. It performed even better than the Everly Brothers' version, widely considered a classic: The Butler-Everett version reached No. 5, two points higher than the Everlys had reached in 1960. Mr. Butler enjoyed his highest pop chart position in 1968 with 'Only the Strong Survive,' which reached No. 4 on the pop chart and No. 1 on the R&B list. In all, more than a dozen of his songs reached Billboard's R&B Top 10 (three of which went all the way to No. 1). Just as many made it to Billboard's Top 40 pop list. Mr. Butler also made a splash, although a smaller one, in politics. In 1985, he was elected as a Democrat to the board of commissioners for Cook County, which encompasses Chicago. He would hold that position for more than three decades before retiring in 2018. Clashes with his bandmate Curtis Mayfield led to Mr. Butler's early exit from the Impressions. Mr. Mayfield went on to have numerous hit songs, both with the Impressions ('People Get Ready,' 'It's All Right') and as a solo artist ('Super Fly'). Shortly after leaving the Impressions, Mr. Butler was given the Iceman nickname by the Philadelphia disc jockey Georgie Woods. 'It was because I wasn't like the other guys — Joe Tex, James Brown and the Isleys — jumping around,' Mr. Butler told the music critic David Nathan in 1975. 'I just used to stand there and sing and Georgie said I was cool. Hence, the Iceman.' Mr. Butler shared writing credits on many of his records. He also wrote the wrenching ballad 'I've Been Loving You Too Long' with Otis Redding, whose recording of the song was a hit in 1965. 'My approach to recording is somewhat different to what most artists adopt,' Mr. Butler told Mr. Nathan. 'I am more involved creatively. While a lot of other artists lean on the producers, I work more with the producers.' Among the honors Mr. Butler received were an N.A.A.C.P. Image Award and a Rhythm and Blues Pioneer Award. He was inducted into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame in 2015. Along with the other members of the Impressions, he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1991. He also served for a time as chairman of the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. Jerry Butler Jr. was born on Dec. 8, 1939, in Sunflower, Miss., in the northwestern part of the state, to Jerry and Arvelia Butler. When he was 3, his family moved to Chicago, where they lived in the Cabrini-Green housing development. He learned about music in church, where he met Mr. Mayfield when they were teenagers. 'In church, someone's going to say 'Amen,' whether you're good or bad,' Mr. Butler said in a 2011 interview with KPBS Radio in San Diego. Mr. Butler and Mr. Mayfield soon formed a quartet, the Northern Jubilee Gospel Singers. In 1957, they joined a doo-wop group, the Roosters, which eventually became the Impressions. The next year, as Jerry Butler and the Impressions, the group was signed by a local label, Vee-Jay Records. 'For Your Precious Love,' which reached No. 3 on the R&B chart, was based on a poem Mr. Butler wrote when he was 16. 'We were trying to find a new sound,' he told the weekly newspaper The Chicago Reader in 2011. 'We didn't want to be doo-wop. We wanted to have a different and lasting impression.' 'For Your Precious Love' 'can almost be considered the first soul record,' Joe McEwen wrote in 'The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll.' In 1961, Mr. Butler became the first singer to put 'Moon River' on the charts, and the only one whose version made the Top 40, reaching No. 11 in Billboard. (Andy Williams's more celebrated version, which became his theme song, was never released as a single.) The song, originally sung by Audrey Hepburn in 'Breakfast at Tiffany's,' won the Oscar for best song in 1962. Mr. Butler's smooth vocal on 'Moon River' was a nod to Nat King Cole, an early influence. He pivoted to his harder soul side when he collaborated with the writing and producing team of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff for two of his most highly regarded albums, 'The Iceman Cometh' in 1968 and 'Ice on Ice' the next year. Even after his departure from the Impressions, Mr. Butler continued to work with Mr. Mayfield, who sang backup on 'He Will Break Your Heart,' and co-wrote the songs 'Find Another Girl' and 'I'm A-Telling You.' Mr. Butler reunited with Mr. Mayfield and the Impressions for a national tour in 1983, and he continued to perform as a solo act even after he entered politics. Late in his career, he hosted a series of popular PBS specials celebrating the vintage stars of doo-wop, R&B and soul. Mr. Butler did not flaunt his star status as a Cook County official; rather, The Chicago Tribune reported in 1995, he won praise from colleagues for his 'studious nature' and the way he 'immersed himself in the nuts and bolts of county government.' He was 'a main proponent in changing the way board members are elected, from at-large berths to single-member districts,' The Tribune added. Mr. Butler studied political science and music history at Governors State University in University Park, Ill., earning a bachelor's degree in 1993 and a master's degree in 1998. His autobiography, 'Only the Strong Survive,' written with Earl Smith, was published in 2004. Mr. Butler's wife of 60 years, Annette, who occasionally sang backup for him, died in 2019. His survivors include two sons, Randy and Tony; four grandchildren; and a great-grandchild. Speaking to The Chicago Reader, Mr. Butler's sister, Mattie, summed up his dedication to romantic music. 'He loves to talk about love and the feeling of love,' she said. 'He really does love a lot of people — genuinely.'
The Guardian
21-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Jerry Butler, soul hitmaker and Illinois politician, dies aged 85
Jerry Butler, the US singer and songwriter who had a string of 1960s pop and soul hits before a long career in Illinois politics, has died aged 85. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Butler died at home on Thursday. He had been living with Parkinson's disease. Born to a poor family in Mississippi and then raised in Chicago, Butler originally trained to be a chef – 'Jerry could cook like somebody's mama,' Smokey Robinson later said – but became an influential and versatile musician who came of age as soul music evolved out of doo-wop and mid-century pop. He brought his gospel music background to bear on one of his earliest songs, For Your Precious Love – named as one of the 500 greatest of all time by Rolling Stone in 2004 – which he wrote and then performed with his group Jerry Butler and the Impressions, taking it to No 11 in the US charts in 1958. The group also featured Butler's childhood friend Curtis Mayfield, who fronted them after Butler left for a solo career – they found further success with songs such as People Get Ready. But the Butler-Mayfield collaboration continued, with Mayfield writing or co-writing a number of solo Butler songs, including He Will Break Your Heart, a No 7 hit in 1960. Butler also co-wrote other hits, such as Otis Redding's I've Been Loving You Too Long. Butler also found success with his takes on a series of pop standards, including Moon River and Make It Easy on Yourself, but his biggest hit of all was self-penned: Only the Strong Survive, which reached No 4 in 1969. It was co-written with powerhouse Philadelphia duo Gamble and Huff, and together they scored a number of other hits. He earned the nickname 'Iceman' for his cool, collected demeanour on stage: 'I came through a period when the Isley Brothers were jumping off the stage, and James Brown was sliding across the floor. But I am just a standup singer,' he said. A cover of He Will Break Your Heart became a US No 1 hit for Tony Orlando and Dawn in 1975, under the title He Don't Love You (Like I Love You). But his own musical success waned in that decade, and he ended up focusing on a beer distribution company he'd founded in 1973. Come the 1980s, he decided to move into politics, and in 1986 was elected to the Board of Commissioners in Cook County, Illinois – it acts as the legislature for the area, and oversees courts, prisons, healthcare and more. He held a position on the 17-strong board until his retirement in 2018. He was made a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 as a member of the Impressions, and his sizeable songbook was also later sampled by hip-hop artists including Snoop Dogg and Missy Elliott.
