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Otago Daily Times
30-05-2025
- 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
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.
The Independent
21-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Jerry Butler death: Impressions singer dies at 85
Jerry Butler, the original lead singer of the R&B and soul group The Impressions, has died. He was 85. The Mississippi-born musician started singing as a teenager in a Chicago church choir alongside his future bandmate Curtis Mayfield. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which inducted The Impressions in 1991, described their music as 'the sound of the Civil Rights Movement.' In later life, Butler went on to become a local politician and served as a commissioner for Cook County, Illinois, from 1985 to 2018. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, he died at home late on Thursday evening. His niece Yolanda Goff told the publication: 'He was very important to both music and to the community, and he will be missed.' Butler was born in Sunflower, Mississippi, on December 8, 1939. When he was three, his family moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he grew up in the Cabrini–Green housing project. In 1957, at the age of 17, Butler and Mayfield joined a doo-wop group called the Roosters. By the following year, at the suggestion of their manager, they had been renamed Jerry Butler & the Impressions. The group had their first chart hit in 1958 with 'For Your Precious Love', which Butler co-wrote with brothers Arthur and Richard Brooks. His most lucrative songwriting credit came when he co-wrote Otis Redding's 1965 hit 'I've Been Loving You Too Long' with the singer. While performing in Philadelphia, a local DJ nicknamed Butler 'The Ice Man' for his cool, smooth delivery. The name stuck, and inspired the names of his solo albums The Ice Man Cometh (1968) and Ice on Ice (1969). Butler continued to perform after launching his political career in 1985. He was a commissioner for Cook County as a member of a 17-member county board, chairing the Health and Hospitals Committee. In a statement Dr Erik Mikaitis, Cook County Health CEO, described Butler as a 'distinguished public servant' and a 'steadfast advocate for health justice.' He added: 'Commissioner Butler's leadership and commitment to public service have left an indelible mark on our health system and the entire county. His unwavering dedication to our community and his invaluable contributions to our County and health system will be profoundly missed.' He was married to his wife Annette, who had originally been one of his backup singers, from 1959 until her death in 2019. No cause of death has yet been confirmed, although it has been reported that Butler was suffering from Parkinson's disease.
Yahoo
21-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Jerry Butler, Impressions Singer and Chicago Politician, Dies at 85
Chicago soul giant Jerry Butler, who succeeded early hits as lead singer of the keystone R&B group Impressions and a notable solo career with years as a Windy City politician, has died, according to the Chicago Sun TImes. No cause of death was announced, although he had suffered from Parkinson's disease; he was 85. Alongside singer-guitarist Curtis Mayfield, with whom he had sung in the Northern Jubilee Gospel Singers, 19-year-old Butler broke onto the charts in 1958 with the doo-wop-inflected ballad 'For Your Precious Love,' by the act initially billed as Jerry Butler and the Impressions. Rolling Stone critic Joe McEwen later wrote, 'The song can almost be considered the first soul record.' Following one more top-30 single with the group, Butler broke away on his own. His first solo hit, 'He Will Break Your Heart,' co-written with Mayfield (with whom he continued to work following his split with the group) and Vee-Jay Records exec Calvin Carter, spent seven weeks at No. 1 on the national R&B charts and reached No. 7 on the U.S. pop charts in 1960. Boasting a strong baritone that reached into the upper register to powerful effect, the suave, nattily attired vocalist was dubbed 'the Iceman' in 1961 by WDAS Philadelphia DJ George Woods when he retained his cool and kept singing after the PA system failed at a local concert. Butler notched another five top-10 hits for Vee-Jay through 1966; one of them, a remake of the Everly Brothers smash 'Let It Be Me' with duet partner Betty Everett, also claimed the R&B pinnacle. He also co-wrote a notable 1965 hit with rising Memphis soul star Otis Redding: 'I've Been Loving You Too Long,' which the pair penned after a shared concert date in Buffalo, NY. After Vee-Jay filed for bankruptcy protection in 1966, the singer moved to Mercury Records, then a Chicago-based independent label, where he experienced his golden era. The young Philly-based production team of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff were instrumental during this epoch. In the notes to a 2001 reissue of 'The Ice Man Cometh' (a No. 29 pop album in 1968) and 'Ice on Ice' (No. 41 in 1969), the two albums he made with the duo, Butler recalled that at a Philadelphia club, 'Kenny came up and told me he and Leon had cut the Intruders' 'Cowboys to Girls,' and I said, 'Man, I love your sound.'' The singer told Mercury president Irwin Steinberg, 'I think these kids have a hipper sound and I want to work with them.' Beginning with the No. 4 R&B entry 'Never Give You Up,' the Butler-Gamble-Huff consortium logged six consecutive soul top-10 hits, including the sleekly crafted No. 1 singles 'Hey, Western Union Man' (also No. 16 pop) and the vocalist's signature song 'Only the Strong Survive' (No. 4 pop). After Gamble and Huff decamped from Mercury to start up their own hit factory, Philadelphia International Records, Butler's sales fortunes began to wane. Apart from the rare solo top-10 R&B single, his biggest hits of the '70s were duets with Brenda Lee Eager, 'Ain't Understanding Mellow' (No. 3, 1971) and a remake of the Carpenters' '(They Long to Be) Close to You' (No. 6, 1972). His last top-10 hit, 'I Wanna Do It to You' (No. 7, 1977), came during a brief association with Motown; a stint at Philadelphia International failed to recapture the magic of past collaborations. By the early '80s, Butler was running a Chicago beer distributorship, but his interest turned to politics after Harold Washington was elected as the city's first Black mayor in 1983. Chicago alderman (and former Black Panther Party officer) Bobby Rush encouraged him to run for the Cook County Board of Commissioners. Elected in 1986, he held the post until his retirement in 2018. Approached by the Chicago Reader's Ted Cox in 2011 to discuss a profile that would focus on his singing career, Butler replied drily, 'Music, huh? Thought I'd covered that up.' Not entirely: In 1991, Jerry Butler was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Impressions. He was born Dec. 8, 1939, in Sunflower, Miss., and moved to Chicago with his family three years later. He grew up in the Cabrini-Green housing projects on Chicago's Near North Side. Though he envisioned a career as a cook or chef when he was young, he became involved in gospel music, with Mayfield, as a member of the Traveling Souls Spiritualist Church. Following a brief tenure with the vocal act the Quails, he joined another 'bird group,' the Roosters, whose members included Sam Gooden and sibling Arthur and Richard Brooks. He brought Mayfield in as singer-guitarist, and the quintet was given a new handle by their manager Eddie Thomas. In 'Move On Up,' Thomas told author Aaron Cohen, 'I said, 'You guys got a beautiful sound…When I met you, I was very impressed with your sound, so why not change your name to the Impressions?' Everybody was doing doo-wops, but they had something like a musical choir in the background.' Butler told writer Cox that their fittingly impressionistic bow 'For Your Precious Love' was an attempt to break with the musical past. 'We were trying to find a new sound. We didn't want to be doo-wop. We wanted to have a different and lasting impression. There's no hook. There's nothing to sing along with. It's a poem set to music.' Butler's songwriting stood him in good stead through his solo work at Vee-Jay and during his association with Gamble and Huff, but after the songwriter's exit from their association with Mercury, he took on a more entrepreneurial interest in his career, founding the Butler Songwriters Workshop in January 1970, with $55,000 in seed money from Chappell Music. In Robert Pruter's classic history 'Chicago Soul,' he confesses, 'The idea for the workshop came out of self-interest. I had obligations to do 30 sides a year with Mercury…and I didn't know what to do. Tin Pan Alley, where you used to be able to get a couple of songs, has died for all intent and purpose….I knew there were a number of young cats in Chicago with a lot of songwriting talent.' Besides nurturing the writing careers of Terry Callier and the team of Chuck Jackson (brother of Rev. Jesse Jackson) and Marvin Yancy, Jr. (the future husband of Natalie Cole), Butler also formed a label, a production company, and an independent record label at around the same time. However, as his career slowed in the early '80s, the onetime singing star turned his attention to politics. Fellow Cook County Commissioner Larry Suffredin told the Reader, 'I think [he] got into [politics] for only one reason—he felt that he had a voice because of all the blessings he'd been given, and that he could use it for other people.' He added, 'I know a meeting is going well because he'll hum to himself. The moment he stops humming, it's like, 'Oh my God, something's about to happen.'' Butler never completely abandoned music: He continued to perform occasionally into the new millennium, hosted oldies R&B specials for PBS and chaired the Rhythm and Blues Foundation's board. He published his autobiography, 'Only the Strong Survive: Memoirs of a Soul Survivor,' in 2000. Butler's wife Annette, to whom he was married for 60 years, died at 81 in 2019; she had worked as his backup singer before they were wed. He is survived by his sons Randy and Anthony. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Grammy Predictions, From Beyoncé to Kendrick Lamar: Who Will Win? Who Should Win? What's Coming to Netflix in February 2025
