Our Tribute to Jerry Butler (1939-2025)
The death at the age of 85 of Jerry Butler, who until now held the longest-running number-one R&B record, one of the great voices of soul, and a major figure in African American music.
Born in Sunflower, Mississippi, on December 8, 1939, Jerry Butler was only three years old when his family moved to Chicago to the Cabrini-Green Housing Projects. It was there that, in his adolescence, he met the one who would become his early musical partner, Curtis Mayfield, with whom he sang in the church choir and in various gospel ensembles before both of them joined the Roosters, a group founded by Sam Gooden and the brothers Richard and Arthur Brooks. Renamed The Impressions, the group scored a huge hit with its very first single, “For Your Precious Love,” released on a subsidiary label of Vee-Jay, which he co-wrote with the Brooks brothers and which reached the 11th spot on Billboard’s Hot 100.
It took Butler only a few months to decide to embark on a solo career, and he soon secured his first hit under his own name with “He Will Break Your Heart,” co-written with Mayfield, which climbed to the top of the R&B charts and reached the 3rd spot on the Hot 100 in 1960. This success, which made him one of the stars of the chitlin’ circuit and a regular at the Apollo, was only the beginning of a long series of hits that would not slow down until more than two decades later, in the mid-1980s, after long stints at Vee-Jay, Mercury, and Motown.
Nicknamed “The Iceman” for his crooner style and his ever-present cool demeanor, the singer effortlessly adapted to the stylistic evolutions of the time and naturally embraced the Philadelphia Soul sound of Gamble & Huff in the late 1960s. Among his biggest hits are his version of “Moon River,” “Make It Easy on Yourself,” “Only the Strong Survive,” “Hey, Western Union Man,” and “I Wanna Do It to You,” the latter being his last entry on the Hot 100 in 1976.
A great enthusiast of duets – particularly with Betty Everett, Gene Chandler, Brenda Lee Eager, and Thelma Houston – he also scored several hits in that format, including “Let It Be Me” with Betty Everett and “Ain’t Understanding Mellow” with Brenda Lee Eager. In addition to his own career, Butler supported that of his colleagues, notably founding the Chicago Songwriters Workshop, which in the early 1970s welcomed Terry Callier and Larry Wade. He also established his own label, Fountain, in the late 1960s and released records by Enchantment, Jackie Ross, and the group Infinity, led by his brother Billy Butler, who regularly accompanied him until the early 1980s (with an interruption in the mid-1970s).
Although he recorded only sporadically during the 1980s and 1990s: “Ice ‘n Hot” for Fountain, “Time & Faith” for Ichiban, and “Simply Beautiful” for Valley Vue, he continued to perform regularly on the nostalgia circuit until the early 2010s. His last album, “Brand New Me,” released in 2001, consists of remakes of his classics recorded in Memphis. In 2004, he published his autobiography, Only the Strong Survive: Memoirs of a Soul Survivor. He appeared in 2002 alongside other veterans in a documentary that also took its name from that song.
Parallel to his musical career, he became involved in politics starting in the 1980s, participating in the election campaign of Harold Washington, Chicago’s first African-American mayor, and holding several municipal elective positions on the Cook County Board of Commissioners until he retired from political life in 2018, after more than 30 years in office during which he notably specialized in health and safety issues. Health problems have forced him in recent years to scale back his activities, and he has been unable to attend the ceremonies organized in honor of his 85th birthday in December 2024.