Billy Butler Passed Away

[mr_june]

http://www.soultracks.com/story-billy-butler-dies

Billy Butler, known to many as the younger brother of the legendary "Ice Man" Jerry Butler, and to deep soul fans as a talented singer and guitarist, has died at age 69. Though sometimes in the shadow of his iconic older brother, Billy had a successful career both as a solo singer and group member. He formed the group The Enchanters in 1963 while still a high schooler. He immediately began working with some of the most important producers in the burgeoning Chicago soul scene, including Carl Davis and Curtis Mayfield. His sessions with Davis led to his biggest hit and career highpoint, the 1965 top 10 R&B hit "I Can't Work No Longer."

Butler continued to record with the Chanters [[the subsequent name of the Enchanters) and then in the late 60s formed the group Infinity. Over the next few years he charted at lower levels with such songs as "Right Track," "I Don't Want to Lose You" and "Hung Up On You" before ending his active recording career in the late 70s. He weng on to write for other artists such as Major Lance and Gene Chandler, and then had a long career as music director and guitarist in his brother Jerry's band. You can see a full biography of Billy Butler here.

In a year that has already had more than its share of soul music deaths, Billy Butler's passing is another sad event for music fans around the world. Rest in peace.
- See more at: http://www.soultracks.com/story-bill....HAr42Htu.dpuf

Sorry to hear this news. As a Chicagoan I'm really touched at his passing. I have fond memories of his music as well as his brother Jerry and Otis Leaville whom I thought sounded very much like Billy.

[jobeterob]

It's been all over Facebook.

[mr_june]

Thanks Jobetrob. I don't do social media and stumbled upon this by chance. No mention in the Chicago Sun-Times yet.

[soulster]

Man! I was just thinking about the next veteran who might pass, and really did think of him being next. Then, I see this...

[no_place_like_motown]

I was listening to some of his songs just the other day. Condolences go out to Jerry and his family and loved ones.

RIP Billy.

[snakepit]

Tribute to Billy Butler on my radio show this week-end

The Soulful Shack

www.fcumradio.co.uk
sat/sun 20.00
mon/tue 17.00

Northern/rare soul & Motown

Also featuring Major Lance, Lavern Baker, Willie Hutch, Rufus Thomas and many more!

[mr_june]

Still no obit in the Chicago Sun-Times. I hope they don't pass over this as Jerry is well know political figure here and Billy was popular back in the day.

[snakepit]

Billy Butler's "Right Track" is arguably the most popular Northern Soul record ever played.
On a countback basis, I'd bet it is right up there as THE record.
I reckon that a lot of people, upon hearing "Right Track", would have dipped their toes into the scene.....worked for me , around 1969 at local disco.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtfbgSUfY-o

[arr&bee]

Whenever i think of what i call the[chicago sound]billy butler is right there with all the legends of chicago soul..r.i.p.

[mr_june]

Chicago Sun-Times Obit:
http://chicago.suntimes.com/entertai...ly-butler-dies

Soul singer Billy Butler dies at 69
Posted: 04/06/2015, 08:36pm | Maureen O'Donnell

Billy Butler’s voice was a beguiling mix of strong and plush.

That’s no surprise, when you consider two of his biggest influences were Curtis Mayfield, the soul giant whose purr was a featherbed for the ears, and his big brother, Jerry “Iceman” Butler, who sang with the luster of a pearl and the grit that made it.

The creator of an exuberant 1960s Chicago soul sound whose compositions were recorded by Al Green, Isaac Hayes and Bobby “Blue” Bland, Billy Butler died of cancer March 31 at a Chicago nursing home. He was 69.

A recording artist, songwriter, musician, arranger and producer, he wasn’t as well-known as his brother. Bad luck and timing made stardom elusive. “Billy was the guy who would have a hit record just as the record company went out of business,” said Jerry Butler, a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee.

Still, “Billy Butler contributed some very fine songs to [the] 1960s R&B canon,” Lee Bey said on his Rivet Radio podcast, “Soul Closet.”

Mr. Butler got interested in music when he was about 12, according to “Only The Strong Survive,” the autobiography of Jerry Butler, who would form the Impressions with Mayfield. Billy Butler used to listen to them rehearse.

“When I first heard Curtis playing the guitar,” Billy Butler said, “I wanted to play just like that.”

His big sister Dorothy gave him a box guitar she got at a pawn shop, and “Curtis tuned it for him, and I sent him to Chicago’s Cosmopolitan School of Music at Lyon and Healy to learn how to play,” Jerry Butler wrote.

“He was a gifted guitar player,” said his sister, Mattie Butler.

But “What they were teaching me was not what I wanted to play,” Billy Butler said in the book. “They were teaching me classical guitar . . . what I wanted to play was rhythm and blues.”

Curtis Mayfield “taught Billy some of the ‘moves,’ I guess you would call it, and he said Billy was the only one who could play exactly like him,” said Jerry Butler, now a Cook County commissioner. For 27 years, Billy Butler accompanied his singing brother on guitar.

The Butlers grew up in public housing at Cabrini Green at 1117 N. Cleveland. They came from a religious family with roots in Sunflower, Mississippi. Their father, Jerry Butler Sr., worked for Chicago’s Streets and Sanitation department. Their mother, Arvelia Agnew Butler, looked askance at the blues and called the radio stations that carried that music “devil stations,” according to Jerry Butler.

Back then, people would excitedly gather at anybody’s house with “a black-and-white TV with two channels,” Jerry Butler told the Sun-Times. The kids were allowed to watch the TV show “Hit Parade,” and they learned how to write songs by reading “Hit Parade” magazine, he said in his autobiography. “The magazine printed out the sheet music of songs performed on the show. It helped us learn how not only to sight read but how to structure songs as well.”

His little brother formed the Enchanters while he was still at Wells High School. They evolved into the Chanters and had a 1965 hit with “I Can’t Work No Longer,” which Bey called “a pleasant little riff on Sam Cooke’s ‘Chain Gang.’ ”

In 1966, Mr. Butler had another hit, “Right Track,” a steppin’ classic that’s been dubbed a “floor-filler” for getting people up and dancing. With the lyrics, “I gotta keep on steppin’, never looking back, I believe that I’m on the right track’’ it had an infectious sound that fit in with “Tears of a Clown” by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, “Dancing in the Street” by Martha Reeves & the Vandellas and Stevie Wonder’s “Uptight [[Everything’s Allright).” An international hit, it was especially big in England, Jerry Butler said.

Billy Butler wrote “Bless Our Love,” a song recorded by “Duke of Earl” Gene Chandler, and the Butler brothers co-wrote “I Stand Accused,” a single by Isaac Hayes.

Mr. Butler also formed another group, Infinity.

In his later years, he wrote many gospel songs and hoped to release a CD of those works, said his daughter, Yolanda Goff. “He always enjoyed writing love songs,” she said. “His last music gospel music was a serenade, a love for God.”

Mr. Butler also is survived by two more daughters, Kiwana Butler-Lewis and Doris Butler, and five grandchildren.

Services have been held.