Jonathan Butler
Encyclopedia
Jonathan Butler is a singer-songwriter and guitarist. His music is often classified as R&B
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...

, jazz fusion
Jazz fusion
Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...

 or worship music.

Biography

Born and raised in Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...

 during Apartheid, Butler started singing and playing acoustic guitar
Acoustic guitar
An acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...

 as a child. Racial segregation
Racial segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...

 and poverty during Apartheid has been the subject of many of his records. His first single was the first by a black artist played by white radio stations in the racially segregated South Africa and earned a Sarie Award, South Africa's equivalent to the Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...

s.

He began touring at the age of seven when he joined a travelling stage show, and was later signed up to perform on a string of hit recordings, turning him into a local teen idol
Teen idol
A teen idol is a celebrity who is widely idolized by teenagers; he or she is often young but not necessarily teenaged. Often teen idols are actors or pop singers, but some sports figures have an appeal to teenagers. Some teen idols began their careers as child actors...

. In 1978 he found the inspiration and encouragement to begin expressing himself as a composer and songwriter when he joined Cape Town's best known jazz/rock outfit, Pacific Express
Pacific Express
Pacific Express Was an airline was formed in 1981 by the management of the commuter airline, West Air headed by Terry Ashton, a former Hughes Airwest executive. Based in Chico CA. The original plan was to begin high frequency, low fare service in the Los Angeles- San Francisco corridor. PSA...

. Two albums were recorded with the Express personnel, and some Pacific Express songs were later released on the 1988 7th Avenue album. All three releases were issued by Mountain Records
Mountain Records
Mountain Records is a record label started in Cape Town, South Africa in 1980 by Patrick Lee-Thorp.The record label produces mostly South African music and is known as the home of Cape Jazz recordings, having issued a number of albums by such names as Basil Coetzee, Robbie Jansen, Jonathan Butler,...

.

Butler was signed to Jive Records
Jive Records
Jive Records was a record label based in New York City, operating under RCA Music Group. Jive was primarily known for a string of successes with hip hop artists in the 1980s, and in teen pop and boy bands in the late 1990s. The word "jive" was inspired by Township Jive, a form of South African...

 in 1977, and in the early 1980s he moved to the United Kingdom where he remained for seventeen years. His international breakthrough came in 1987 with his Grammy nominated
Grammy Nominees
The Grammy Nominees is a series of various artists compilation albums celebrating the best of the music industry. Albums are released before the airing of the annual Grammy Awards. All of the songs on the albums are Grammy nominated in the year released. The first one of these albums was released...

 hit single, "Lies" and his cover version
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...

 of the Staple Singers song "If You're Ready (Come Go with Me)", which he performed with Ruby Turner
Ruby Turner
Ruby Turner is a British R&B and soul singer, songwriter and actress. In 1967, she relocated with her family to Handsworth, Birmingham, England when she was nine years old...

.

Butler maintained a loyal following in the 1980s and 1990s, in South Africa, the United States and Europe.

In 2006, Butler was a featured vocalist on the album Gospel Goes Classical, produced by University of Alabama at Birmingham
University of Alabama at Birmingham
The University of Alabama at Birmingham is a public university in Birmingham in the U.S. state of Alabama. Developing from an extension center established in 1936, the institution became an autonomous institution in 1969 and is today one of three institutions in the University of Alabama System...

 music professor Henry Panion
Henry Panion
Henry Panion, III is an American composer, arranger, conductor, educator, and Professor in the Department of Music at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He holds degrees in music education and music theory from Alabama A & M University and the Ohio State University, respectively...

. This recording, featuring arrangement
Arrangement
The American Federation of Musicians defines arranging as "the art of preparing and adapting an already written composition for presentation in other than its original form. An arrangement may include reharmonization, paraphrasing, and/or development of a composition, so that it fully represents...

s by Panion, Tommy Stewart
Tommy Stewart (trumpeter)
Tommy Stewart is an American trumpeter, arranger, producer, composer and pianist residing in Birmingham, Alabama. He is a member of several active performing groups, including the Magic City Jazz Orchestra, Cleveland Eaton and the Alabama All-Stars, the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame All-Stars, and Ray...

, Michael Loveless, and Ray Reach
Ray Reach
Raymond Everett Reach, Jr. is an American pianist, vocalist and educator residing in Birmingham, Alabama, now serving as Director of Student Jazz Programs for the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, director of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame All-Stars and President and CEO of Ray Reach Music and Magic City...

, rose to #2 on the Billboard Gospel chart, and #3 on the Classical Crossover chart. He was also nominated for a Grammy Award for his single "Going Home".

Also in 2008, he guest starred on George Duke
George Duke
George Duke is a multi-faceted American musician, known as a keyboard pioneer, composer, singer and producer in both jazz and popular mainstream musical genres. He has worked with numerous acclaimed artists as arranger, music director, writer and co-writer, record producer and professor of music...

's Album Dukey Treats, alongside the late Teena Marie
Teena Marie
Mary Christine Brockert, better known by her stage name Teena Marie, was an American singer, songwriter and producer...

 on the track Sudan, talking about the disasters of Darfur
Darfur
Darfur is a region in western Sudan. An independent sultanate for several hundred years, it was incorporated into Sudan by Anglo-Egyptian forces in 1916. The region is divided into three federal states: West Darfur, South Darfur, and North Darfur...

.

Discography

  • Introducing Jonathan Butler (1985)
  • Jonathan Butler (1987)
  • Inspirations (1987)
  • 7th Avenue (1988)
  • More Than Friends (1988)
  • Deliverance (1990)
  • Heal Our Land (1990)
  • Best Of Jonathan Butler (1993)
  • Head To Head (1994)
  • Do You Love Me? (1997)
  • Story Of Life (1999)
  • The Source (2000)
  • Surrender (2002)
  • Ultimate Butler (2002)
  • Worship Project (2004)
  • Jonathan (2005)
  • Gospel Goes Classical (2006) (with Juanita Bynum
    Juanita Bynum
    Juanita Bynum is an American Pentecostal televangelist, author, actress and gospel singer.-Early life:Juanita Bynum is one of 5 children, from the marriage of Elder Thomas Bynum Sr. and Katherine Bynum. She grew up in Chicago, and received a starring role in Perry Middle School's annual play, My...

    )
  • Brand New Day (2007)
  • So Strong (2010)

External links

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