TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. The great soul singer Jerry Butler died last month at the age of 85. We're going to remember him by listening back to our interview from 2000. He first recorded with the group The Impressions, which he co-founded with his friend Curtis Mayfield. Butler sang lead on The Impressions' 1958 hit "For Your Precious Love," which he also co-wrote. After leaving the group, Butler went solo and had the hits "He Will Break Your Heart," "Let It Be Me," "Make It Easy On Yourself," "I Stand Accused," "What's The Use Of Breaking Up," and "Only The Strong Survive," which is the title of his memoir, which had just been published when we spoke. The Philadelphia radio DJ Georgie Woods nicknamed Butler the Ice Man because his style and stage presence were so cool.
Butler was born in rural Mississippi in 1939. Three years later, he moved with his family to Chicago, where he continued to live. He became politically active in the city, serving on the Cook County Board of Commissioners from 1985 to 2008. When we spoke, he was serving his fourth term. We started with his 1969 hit, "Only The Strong Survive." He co-wrote the song with Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL GROUP: (Singing) I remember.
JERRY BUTLER: I remember my first love affair.
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL GROUP: (Singing) I remember.
BUTLER: Somehow or another, the whole darn thing went wrong.
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL GROUP: (Singing) I remember.
BUTLER: And my mama had some great advice, so I thought I'd put it in the words of this song.
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL GROUP: (Singing) I remember.
BUTLER: I can still hear her saying, (singing) boy....
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL GROUP: (Singing) Boy, boy.
BUTLER: (Singing)...Oh, I see you sitting out there all alone, crying your eyes out 'cause the woman that you love is gone. Oh, there's going to be, there's going to be a whole lot of trouble in your life.
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL GROUP: (Singing) Whole lot of trouble.
BUTLER: (Singing) Oh, so listen to me. Get up off your knees 'cause only the strong survive. That's what she said. She said only the...
JERRY BUTLER AND UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL GROUP: (Singing)...Strong survive. Only the strong survive.
BUTLER: (Singing) Yeah, you got to be strong.
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL GROUP: (Singing) Oh.
BUTLER: (Singing) You better hold on.
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL GROUP: (Singing) Hold on.
BUTLER: (Singing) Don't go...
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL GROUP: (Singing) Go, go.
BUTLER: (Singing)...Around with your...
GROSS: Jerry Butler, welcome to FRESH AIR.
BUTLER: Thank you, Terry.
GROSS: Tell us the story behind this song.
BUTLER: Actually, this song and the lyrics were actual - a conversation that I had with my mother when I was about 16 years old. I was in love with an older woman, if you can believe that. And naturally, she said, this is a kid. I've got to move on with my life and do some other things. And so she just kind of dropped me like a hot potato. So I went, told mama, hey, look, this is the end of the world. She said, boy, (laughter) let me tell you this - that you have not seen half of the beautiful, lovely women in this world, and for you to be going through these kinds of changes this early in your life is absolutely ridiculous. Get out of here. You'll get over it. And "Only The Strong Survive" was really created out of that conversation. Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff were the co-writers on it. But the introduction that is recited was really from that conversation with my mother.
GROSS: What's - what would you say is the importance of this song in your career?
BUTLER: You know, the - first of all, it was the first legitimate gold record. And when I say legitimate gold record, I mean "For Your Precious Love" and "He Will Break Your Heart" probably were gold records, but I never received one for it.
GROSS: Right.
BUTLER: "Only The Strong Survive" was the first record that I actually got from a recording company that said, you are certified as having sold over a million copies of this song. But more important than that was that it was during the period of the Civil Rights Movement. It was near the end of - a lot of things were happening. The Black Power movement was in vogue. And as a matter of fact, I realized that the song was a hit doing a concert at Prairie View college in Prairie View, Texas. And the kids had kind of adopted the slogan - "Only The Strong Survive" as their theme song. And then there were a bunch of soldiers who came back from Vietnam, who told me that "Only The Strong Survive" was helpful in seeing them through some very trying times, and they believed that it had helped them to come out of those foxholes.
GROSS: Now, you first sang gospel music. You were part of a group called the Northern Jubilee Singers. And Curtis Mayfield was in that group, too, and, of course, you also sang together in The Impressions. How did you first meet?
BUTLER: Curtis' grandmother, the Rev. Annie Bell Mayfield, was the pastor of this little congregation called the Traveling Soul Spiritualist Church, and Curtis' older cousins had this little group called the Northern Jubilee Singers. I wound up at this church one afternoon with a friend of mine, a fellow by the name of Terry Williams (ph), because we just had singing in common and loved to do it. And he said, I want you to meet these people and get to know them, and maybe you'll decide to get involved with the group. In fact, I did. We used to kick Curtis to the side because he was probably 9 years old. He was the little guy, you know? I was 13. I was an old man.
(LAUGHTER)
BUTLER: And so we kind of kept shoving him to the back, shoving him to the back, until he learned how to play the guitar. And then he kind of just took over because he was the real musician out of the group.
GROSS: Had your voice changed yet?
BUTLER: As a matter of fact, it had. I - my voice went into the baritone register when I was about 13, and it has never come up again.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSS: What about Curtis Mayfield? His couldn't have. He was only 9. How did he sound?
BUTLER: Well, you know, Curtis was just the opposite. Curtis always kind of sounded like a little girl, you know? (Impersonating Curtis Mayfield, singing) You got to keep on pushing. Can't stop now. Move up a little higher.
(LAUGHTER)
BUTLER: So he always had that kind of thing going. And I think over time, he effectively, as Smokey has done, used it to the point that it became really kind of his natural sound.
GROSS: Now, did you and Curtis Mayfield leave gospel music for rhythm and blues at about the same time?
BUTLER: You know, see, we were never big and famous, as was Sam Cooke or Lou Rawls with the Pilgrim Travelers and Sam Cooke with the Soul Stirrers. And so when we started singing rhythm and blues, nobody was really affected by it but maybe the people who belonged to the church and us. When Sam left, that was an uproar throughout the whole country in most of the churches because here was this gospel icon that had gone from singing the sacred music to singing the secular music.
But Curtis and I, we really made the - and I would like to say we made an extension rather than a transition because even in Curtis' music throughout the Civil Rights Movement or what have you, you can still hear the strains of the gospel. And he really wrote kind of inspirational songs as opposed to what I call hope-to-die love songs, which are the kind of things that I was writing.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSS: What's an example of a hope-to-die love song?
BUTLER: (Singing) Your precious love means more to me than any love could ever be.
Whereas he was writing, (singing) got to keep on pushing. Can't stop now. Move up a little higher.
You see?
GROSS: Yeah, yeah.
BUTLER: A difference in attitude.
GROSS: Well, I think it's time to hear your first hit...
BUTLER: Yeah.
GROSS: ..."For Your Precious Love," which was recorded in 1958, when you were with the Impressions. And you say that this was - that the lyric was originally a poem that you wrote when you were in high school?
BUTLER: Yes. A poem called "They Say," as a matter of fact, as you will hear it in the lyric.
GROSS: Was it changed at all for the lyric? Or is it exactly the same?
BUTLER: The only thing that was changed is the title, "For Your Precious Love."
GROSS: OK. This is 1958, Jerry Butler and The Impressions.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FOR YOUR PRECIOUS LOVE")
BUTLER: (Singing) Your precious love means more to me than any love could ever be. For when I wanted you, I was so lonely and so blue, for that's what love will do. And, darling, I'm so surprised, oh, when I first realized that you were fooling me. And, darling, they say that our love won't grow. But I just want to tell them that they don't know. For as long as you're in love with me...
GROSS: My guest is soul singer Jerry Butler. That's his 1958 hit with the Impressions, "For Your Precious Love." Now, let's talk about how you recorded that song. You had been with a group that was, I think, called the Roosters?
BUTLER: Actually, the Roosters became the Impressions.
GROSS: Right. So who changed the name to the Impressions?
BUTLER: It was Curtis' idea. Curtis said one day, after we had decided that - well, let me give you a little history.
GROSS: Yeah.
BUTLER: The Roosters was Arthur and Richard Brooks and Samuel Gooden, who were from Chattanooga, Tennessee. And while they were living there, they had a group called Four Roosters and a Chick, which is very cool for Chattanooga, Tennessee. They came to Chicago hoping that they were going to get a recording contract, because at that time, Chicago was one of the music centers of the United States. Lots of record companies here. The chick and one of the roosters decided that these other three roosters had lost their marbles, and they weren't coming to Chicago on this fool's errand. Curtis and Jerry Butler then become the other two roosters. And then one day, we were doing something at my wife's home, as a matter of fact, down in the basement. And one of the little smart aleck friends of hers said, cock-a-doodle-doo.
(LAUGHTER)
BUTLER: And that kind of wiped out the rooster name. We said, no, man. We've got to change this name. And Curtis said, well, wherever we go, what we want to do is to leave a lasting impression. And we said, that's it. That's what we're going to call ourselves, the Impressions. And that's how it came about.
GROSS: We're listening back to the interview I recorded with Jerry Butler in 2000. He died last month at age 85. We'll be right back with more of the interview after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF MAX MORAN AND NEOSPECTRIC, FIEND AND NICHOLAS PAYTON SONG, "ALL RIGHT")
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to the interview I recorded in 2000 with soul singer Jerry Butler. He died last month at age 85. His hits included "He Will Break Your Heart," "Let It Be Me," "Make It Easy On Yourself," "I Stand Accused" and "Only The Strong Survive." When we left off, we were talking about his first hit, "For Your Precious Love." He cowrote the song and recorded it with The Impressions, the group he cofounded with Curtis Mayfield. Butler sang lead on the track.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
GROSS: Were there any squabbles about who would get to sing lead on your first recordings?
BUTLER: You know, it kind of came with the song. For instance, if Curtis wrote the song, Curtis sang the lead. If I wrote the song, I sang the lead. There was a squabble after "For Your Precious Love" was released because Vivian Carter, who owned Vee-Jay Records - and she decided, having had an experience with a group called the Spaniels where she wanted to take the lead singer and give him a career of his own, but he was so interwoven with the fabric of the Spaniels that she was afraid she would destroy the whole thing - made a promise to herself that the next time someone came through that door that had a unique sound and had a unique voice in it that she was going to build that unique voice along with the group, so that in later years, if there was a breakup or if she decided to move one of the parts toward another career, she could take one act and make two. The Impressions happened to be that act, and Jerry Butler happened to be that voice. And so when the recording was released, it was released as Jerry Butler and the Impressions. And the group never recovered from it. We argued and fought about the billing from that day until the day I left, which was about seven months, eight months later.
GROSS: Did that have to do with your leaving?
BUTLER: Yes.
GROSS: Explain more about that.
BUTLER: Well, here we were - five young guys walked into a recording studio as the Impressions, walked out as Jerry Butler and the Impressions. The other four guys were wondering, well, what did Jerry do to get top billing? How did all of a sudden it start to look as though we're working for him as opposed to him being just part of the group? When we get to the Apollo Theater in New York, you have Jerry Butler in great big letters, the Impressions in small letters. By the time we get to Miami, Florida, there's just Jerry Butler on the marquee. No Impressions at all. And in each one of those places, the other guys refused to perform because their feelings were hurt. Their pride was hurt. They just never could understand it. And no matter how much I told them that I hadn't done anything, that this was a decision that had been made by the record company, they just never bought it.
GROSS: Let's hear the - what I think was the first hit you had when you went solo - "He Will Break Your Heart"?
BUTLER: Yes.
GROSS: Yeah.
BUTLER: With Curtis singing in the background. So even though it's a solo record, it's not really. It's more of a duet (laughter).
GROSS: And how did this become the song that you made?
BUTLER: What happened was my wife, Annette, Curtis and a young fellow by the name of Eddie Thomas, who was at that time working as a roadie, we were driving from Philadelphia to Atlantic City, and we were talking about how the girls hang at the backstage door to get a chance to say hello to the stars, and hopefully they would get a chance to be invited out, and etc., etc. And then the next morning, the artists would leave town and those same girls would go back to whoever they were dating, whatever they were doing before the stars came to town. And that was the concept behind "He Will Break Your Heart." He uses all the great quotations. He says the things I wish I could say. But when he takes his bow and makes his exit, you know, I'll be there to take you home because I'm Jerry. I'm Jerry always be here. That guy is Jerry going to be gone in the morning.
GROSS: OK. Recorded in 1960, this is Jerry Butler with Curtis Mayfield. It's been so much fun to talk with you. I want to thank you so much.
BUTLER: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HE WILL BREAK YOUR HEART")
JERRY BUTLER AND CURTIS MAYFIELD: (Singing) He don't love you like I love you. If he did, he wouldn't break your heart. He don't love you like I love you. He's trying to tear us apart. Fare thee well. I know you're leaving.
GROSS: My interview with Jerry Butler was recorded in 2000. He died last month. He was 85.
Jazz drummer Roy Haynes, who played with jazz luminaries from Lester Young and Charlie Parker to Gary Burton and Pat Metheny, was born a hundred years ago today. Jazz historian Kevin Whitehead will have an appreciation after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAMES HUNTER SONG, "I'LL WALK AWAY") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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