Jerry Butler (singer)
| Jerry Butler | |
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Butler in 1970
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Jerry Butler, Jr. |
| Also known as | The Iceman |
| Born |
December 8, 1939 Sunflower, Mississippi, U.S. |
| Origin | Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
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| Years active | 1958–present |
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Jerry Butler, Jr. (born December 8, 1939) is an American soul singer and songwriter. He is also noted as being the original lead singer of the famed R&B vocal group the Impressions, as well as a 1991 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee. Butler is also an American politician. He serves as a Commissioner for Cook County, Illinois, having first been elected in 1985. As a member of this 17-member county board, he chairs the Health and Hospitals Committee, and serves as Vice Chair of the Construction Committee.
Butler was born in Sunflower, Mississippi in 1939. The mid-1950s had a profound impact on Butler's life. He grew up poor, having lived in Chicago's Cabrini–Green housing complex. Music and the church provided solace from the poverty of the slums he lived in, and difficulties of a predominantly segregated society. He performed in a church choir with Curtis Mayfield. As a teenager, Butler sang in a gospel quartet called Northern Jubilee Gospel Singers, along with Mayfield. Mayfield, a guitar player, became the lone instrumentalist for the six-member Roosters group, which later became The Impressions. Inspired by Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers, the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, and the Pilgrim Travelers, getting into the music industry seemed inevitable.
Butler's younger brother, Billy Butler, also had a career in the music industry, including playing guitar with Jerry's band, until his death in 2015.
Butler co-wrote the song "For Your Precious Love" (which is ranked No. 327 on the Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time) and wanted to record a disc. Looking for recording studios, the Impressions (the original members of which were Butler, Curtis Mayfield, Sam Gooden, Fred Cash - who left early on, and later returned - and brothers Arthur and Richard Brooks), auditioned for Chess Records and Vee-Jay Records. The group eventually signed with Vee-Jay, where they released "For Your Precious Love" in 1958. It became The Impressions' first hit and gold record.
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