One of the greatest soul singers Chicago’s ever produced is coming home next month to sing a few songs.
It’s been over 40 years since Butler got his start, and it sometimes seems to him as though every corner of the city reverberates with memories of those early days. The Arie Crown, for instance, isn’t far from the address on South Michigan Avenue of the old studio where he recorded “For Your Precious Love,” his first hit. He was with the Impressions, a group that included a precocious 16-year-old tenor named Curtis Mayfield.
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“One day we were cleaning out his grandmother’s closet and he found this old guitar. He tuned it and started to play. No lessons. He just taught himself. About two months later he knew every song we sang in the gospel group. We pulled him into the group because he was the only one who played an instrument.”
Butler remained friends with Mayfield, who helped him write several songs, including “He Will Break Your Heart,” “Find Another Girl,” and “I’m the Only One That Loves You.” All told, Butler had over a dozen hits. For a generation of teenage boys, he was the epitome of unruffled cool–the laid-back Ice Man who remained strong in the face of heartache. To this day those teenagers, well beyond 40, crank up the radio when they hear the opening lines of “Only the Strong Survive.” Butler, crying his “heart out” because the woman he loves is gone, quotes his mama’s words of advice: “Boy, there’s gonna be a whole lotta trouble in your life / So listen to me, get off of your knees / ‘Cause only the strong survive.”
They formed a company, and last January they put on three shows in New Jersey. They’re coming to Chicago to see how the show plays in the midwest. “This show’s not much different from the ones we did when we were starting out,” says Butler. “In those days you had three or four artists on the bill, and each one sang a few songs. That’s sort of what we’re doing. I’ll come out and sing ‘He Will Break Your Heart,’ or ‘Western Union Man,’ or whatever. Then I’ll introduce Lloyd, who will sing ‘Stagger Lee’ or ‘Personality,’ and he’ll introduce Gene Chandler, and so forth. We’ll come back onstage enough times so you’ll hear all the old songs.”
“I sure wish he could be with us. Singing in Chicago always reminds me of Curtis. This is where we started. You can’t go back in time, but I’d give up a lot just to have him up onstage.”
The office persisted in this policy even after Meeker pointed out the absurdity of locking a disabled entrance, located close to the disabled parking spaces, to a man in a wheelchair.
