Jerry ‘Ice Man’ Butler, soul singer of ‘Solely the Robust Survive,’ dies at 85
Jerry Butler, a premier soul singer of the Sixties and after whose wealthy, intimate baritone graced such hits as “For Your Valuable Love,” “Solely the Robust Survive” and “Make It Straightforward On Your self,” has died at age 85.
Butler’s niece, Yolanda Goff, instructed The Related Press that Butler died Thursday of Parkinson’s illness at his house in Chicago. A longtime Chicago resident, Butler was a former Cook dinner County board commissioner who would nonetheless carry out on weekends and establish himself as Jerry “Ice Man” Butler, a present enterprise nickname given for his understated model.
Butler, a member of the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame and a three-time Grammy Award nominee, was a voice for 2 main soul music hubs: Chicago and Philadelphia. Together with childhood buddy Curtis Mayfield, he helped discovered the Chicago-based Impressions and sang lead on the breakthrough hit “For Your Valuable Love,” a deeply emotional, gospel-influenced ballad that made Butler a star earlier than the age of 20. A decade later, within the late ‘60s, he joined the Philadelphia-based manufacturing workforce of Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff, who labored with him on “Solely the Robust Survive,” “Hey Western Union Man” and different hits. His albums “Ice on Ice” and “The Ice Man Cometh” are considered early fashions for the danceable, string-powered productions that grew to become the traditional “Sound of Philadelphia.”
Butler additionally was an impressed songwriter who collaborated with Otis Redding on “I’ve Been Loving You Too Lengthy,” a signature ballad for Redding; and with Gamble and Huff on “Solely the Robust Survive,” later lined by Elvis Presley amongst others. His different credit included “For Your Valuable Love,” “By no means Give You Up” (with Gamble and Huff) and “He Will Break Your Coronary heart,” which Butler helped write after he started fascinated by the boyfriends of the groupies he met on the highway.
“You go right into a city; you’re solely going to be there for one night time; you need some firm; you discover a woman; you blow her thoughts,” Butler instructed Rolling Stone in 1969. “Now you recognize that woman hasn’t been sitting on the town ready so that you can are available. She most likely has one other fellow and the opposite fellow’s most likely in love together with her; they’re most likely planning to undergo the entire thing, proper? However you by no means take that into consideration on that exact night time.”
The son Mississippi sharecroppers, Butler and his household moved moved north to Chicago when he was 3, a part of the period’s “Nice Migration” of Black individuals out of the South. He cherished every kind of music as a toddler and was a ok singer {that a} buddy steered he come to an area place of worship, the Touring Souls Spiritualist Church, presided over by the Rev. A.B. Mayfield. Her grandson, Curtis Mayfield, quickly grew to become a longtime collaborator. (Mayfield died in 1999.)
In 1958, Mayfield and Butler together with Sam Gooden and brothers Arthur and Richard Brooks recorded “For Your Valuable Love” for Vee-Jay Data. The group referred to as itself the Impressions, however Vee-Jay, anxious to advertise a person star, marketed the track as by Jerry Butler and the Impressions, resulting in estrangement between Butler and the opposite performers and to an sudden solo profession.
“Fame didn’t change me as a lot because it modified the individuals round me,” Butler wrote in his memoir “Solely the Robust Survive,” revealed in 2000.
One among his early solo performances was a 1961 cowl of “Moon River,” the theme to “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” Butler was the primary performer to hit the charts with what grew to become a pop normal, however “Moon River” can be related to Andy Williams after the singer was chosen to carry out it on the Academy Awards, a snub Butler lengthy resented. His different solo hits, some recorded with Mayfield, included “He Will Break Your Coronary heart”, “Discover One other Woman” and “I’m A-Telling You.”
By 1967, his formal model appeared out of style, however Butler was impressed by the brand new music popping out of Philadelphia and acquired permission from his document label (Mercury) to work with Gamble and Huff. The chemistry, Butler recalled, was so “fierce” they wrote hits reminiscent of “Solely the Robust Survive” in lower than an hour.
“Issues simply appear to fall into place,” Butler instructed Ebony journal in 1969. “We lock ourselves in a room, create tales about lovers, compose the music, then write the lyrics to match the music.”
By the Nineteen Eighties, Butler’s profession had light and he was changing into more and more enthusiastic about politics. Inspired by the 1983 election of Harold Washington, Chicago’s first Black mayor, he ran efficiently for the Cook dinner County Board in 1985 and was re-elected repeatedly, even after supporting a controversial gross sales tax enhance in 2009. He retired from the board in 2018.
Butler was married for 60 years to Annette Smith, who died in 2019, and together with her had twin sons. Lots of his generational friends had struggled financially and he labored to assist them, whereas additionally supporting numerous relations. He chaired the Rhythm & Blues Basis, which affords a variety of help to musicians, and pushed the trade to supply medical and retirement advantages. Butler thought-about himself fortunate, even when he did go on the prospect to personal part of Gamble and Huff’s Philadelphia Worldwide recording firm.
“You already know, I’ve lived properly. My spouse most likely would say I may’ve lived higher,” Butler instructed the Chicago Reader in 2011. “Did I make 40, 50 million {dollars}? No. Did I maintain one or two? Sure. The previous guys on the road used to say, ‘It’s not how a lot you make. It’s how a lot you retain.’”
