Jerry Butler 1939–

Vocalist

At a Glance…

Selected discography

Sources

Known as “The Iceman,” Jerry Butler perfected a smooth, delicate baritone that has captivated music fans of many different backgrounds over his five decades of performing and recording. He was credited as “one of the architects of R&B” by Ebony magazine. As both a solo artist and during his long partnership with Curtis Mayfield, Butler forged new styles that grew from his own musical background of gospel and doo-wop and helped propel African American popular music to a new level of general appeal. Unlike those of many other virtuoso vocal stylists, his career has encompassed both singing and songwriting.

Butler was born in the small community of Sunflower, Mississippi, on December 8, 1939. Before he had reached the age of three, his family joined the African American migration north to Chicago. Jerry was the oldest of four children. His younger brother, Billy, also embarked upon a musical career. At the age of 14, Butler took over as the family’s main breadwinner, but still found time to attend Chicago’s Washburn High School. He also became interested in gospel music, joining the choir of the Traveling Souls Spiritual Church when he was only 12-years-old.

The choir put Butler in contact with other musically talented young men, just as the streetcorner-harmony style known as doo-wop, after the exquisitely harmonized nonsense syllables that permeated the music, was peaking in popularity. It was natural that these gospel singers would gather into secular groups after hours. One of Butler’s choirmates was a singer and guitarist named Curtis May-field. The two had already worked together in a gospel ensemble called the Modern Jubilaires. In 1957, along with three other compatriots, Butler and Mayfield formed the Impressions. Clearly a standout even in Chicago’s crowded harmony-group scene, the Impressions were signed to their hometown Vee Jay label in 1958.

Stardom was just around the corner for the Impressions. The group rocketed to the R&B top three with “For Your Precious Love,” and the song also reached number eleven on the pop charts. Sudden success caused bickering among the youthful Impressions, especially after “For Your Precious Love” appeared with a label crediting “Jerry Butler and the Impressions” for the performance. Butler embarked on a solo career, but remained creatively close to Mayfield. The pair

At a Glance…

Born on December 8, 1939, in Sunflower, MS; oldest of four children; married, wife’s name Annette; children: Randall and Anthony.

Career: Joined choir, Traveling Souls Spiritual Church at age 12; with Curtis Mayfield, formed the Impressions, 1957; signed to Vee Jay label with the Impressions, 1958; left Impressions for solo career but continued to work with Mayfield; signed with Mercury label, 1967; worked with Gamble and Huff production team on classic soul LP albums The Ice Man Cometh and Ice on tce, 1969; formed beer distributorship that became Iceman Beverage Company, 1973; signed with Motown label, 1976; signed with Philadelphia International label, 1978; elected to Cook County, Illinois, Board of Commissioners, 1985.

Awards: Three Grammy nominations, for Album of the Year, Male Vocalist of theYear, and Song of the Year, 1969.

Addresses: Office —Cook County Board of Commissioners, 118 N. ClarkSt., Suite 567, Chicago, IL 60602.

teamed up on Butler’s 1960 hit “He Will Break Your Heart,” which also reached the pop Top Ten. Butler stayed with the Vee Jay label until it became defunct in the mid-1960s. He scored several more hits, such as the durable “I Stand Accused” from 1964.

The Impressions, under Mayfield’s leadership, developed into one of the most successful soul vocal groups of the 1960s. Later in that decade, Butler left the Impressions and embarked on a solo career. Recording for the Mercury label, he found the perfect sonic complement for his voice in the work of the Philadelphia production team of Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff. Gamble and Huff pioneered the so-called “Philly soul” sound, which cultivated a smoother, more intricately arranged style than those favored by their competitors in Detroit and Memphis. The addition of Butler’s vocals to the sound resulted in some of the biggest hits of his career.

“Hey Western Union Man” reached the number sixteen slot on the pop charts in 1968, and “Only the Strong Survive” climbed even further, to number four, the following year. Butler’s two albums from the late 1960s, Ice on Ice and The Ice Man Cometh, were indispensable components of any soul music record collection at the time. They earned Butler three Grammy award nominations, for Album of the Year, Male Vocalist of the Year, and Song of the Year, in 1969. In addition to the contributions of Gamble and Huff, the success of Butler’s albums at this point in his career may be attributed to his own meticulous approach to the styling of a song. “I’m from the old school,” he was quoted as saying in African American Biographies. “I believe that anything that’s worth doing is worth doing well.”

By 1970, Butler was a soul-music institution. His split from Gamble and Huff that year initiated a moderate downturn in his popularity, but he remained a consistent hitmaker for many years. Butler was especially noted for his duets with Gene Chandler and Brenda Lee Eager in the early 1970s. He signed with the Motown label in 1976, but returned to Gamble and Huff’s Philadelphia International label two years later. The shift resulted in an increase in Butler’s popularity for a time. He kept up a steady stream of new releases that reached into the 1990s, recording for the Fountain and Ichiban labels. Butler also remained in the limelight as a live performer. In 1999, he hosted a half-century-of-doo-wop tribute program on the Public Broadcasting Service. He also remained a fixture on the Chicago club scene.

As his career in music reached a plateau, Butler branched out into other areas. He started a beer distributorship in 1973, which eventually grew into the Iceman Beverage Company, a subsidiary of the giant Chicago brewery G. Heileman (the maker of Old Style beer). Butler had always been known as an entertainer with a social conscience, a tendency that dated back to the early years of his career in the South when he and his entourage had faced difficulty in finding accommodations in segregated hotels. At the height of his career, Butler performed benefits for such groups as the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). He also became involved in several political campaigns.

In 1985, Butler became one of the few entertainers to make a successful transition into politics, winning election to the Cook County, Illinois, Board of Commissioners after an eleven-month campaign. This governmental body supervised state-owned facilities— hospitals, schools, prisons, parks, and more—in the second-most populous county in the nation, an area that included the city of Chicago. Butler won reelection consistently and remained on the county board at the turn of the century. Honored with induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, Butler is a much-loved elder statesman of African American music. Married to the former Annette Smith, he is the father of two sons, Randall and Anthony.

Selected discography

“For Your Precious Love” (single), Vee Jay, 1958 (with the Impressions).

He Will Break Your Heart, Vee Jay, 1960.

Love Me, Vee Jay, 1961.

Aware of Love, Vee Jay, 1961.

Moon River, Vee Jay, 1962.

Folk Songs, Vee Jay, 1963.

Soul Artistry, Mercury, 1967.

The Soul Goes On, Mercury, 1968.

The Ice Man Cometh, Mercury, 1968.

Ice on Ice, Mercury, 1969.

You & Me, Mercury, 1970.

Special Memory, Mercury, 1970.

Best of Jerry Butler, Mercury, 1970.

The Sagittarius Movement, Mercury, 1971.

The Spice of Life, Mercury, 1972.

The Love We Have, The Love We Had, Mercury, 1972 (with Brenda Lee Eager).

The Power of Love, Mercury, 1973.

Sweet Sixteen, Mercury, 1974.

Love’s on the Menu, Motown, 1976.

Suite for the Single Girl, Motown, 1977.

Nothing Says I Love You Like I Love You, Philadelphia International, 1978.

Best Love I Ever Had, Philadelphia International, 1981.

Ice ‘n ’ Hot, Fountain, 1982.

The Best of Jerry Butler, Rhino, 1987.

Iceman: The Mercury Years, Mercury, 1992.

Time & Faith, Ichiban, 1993.

Sources

Books

Erlewine, Michael, et al., eds., The All Music Guide to Rock, 2nd ed., Miller Freeman, 1997.

Hawkins, Walter L., African American Biographies: Profiles of 558 Current Men and Women, McFar-land and Company, 1992.

Larkin, Colin, ed., The Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Muze UK, 1998.

Romanowski, Patricia, and Holly George-Warren, eds., The New Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll, Fireside, 1995.

Stambler, Irwin, The Encyclopedia of Pop, Rock & Soul, St. Martin’s Press, 1989.

Periodicals

Billboard, November 20, 1999, p. 27.

Ebony, April 1999, p. 104.

—James M. Manheim