Soul singer Jerry ‘Ice Man’ Butler dies at 85

Jerry Butler, a key soul singer of the 1960s and after whose rich, intimate baritone graced such hits as “For Your Precious Love”, “Only the Strong Survive” and “Make It Easy On Yourself”, has died at age 85.

Butler’s niece, Yolanda Goff, told the Chicago Sun-Times that he died on Thursday at his home in Chicago, US.

Butler was a former Cook County board commissioner who would still perform on weekends and identify himself as Jerry “Ice Man” Butler, a show business nickname given for his understated style.

Along with childhood friend Curtis Mayfield, he helped found the Chicago-based Impressions and sang lead on the breakthrough hit “For Your Precious Love”, a gospel-influenced ballad that made Butler a star before the age of 20.

A decade later, in the late ’60s, he joined the Philadelphia-based production team of Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff, who worked with him on “Only the Strong Survive”, “Hey Western Union Man” and other hits.

His albums “Ice on Ice” and “The Iceman Cometh” are regarded as early models for the danceable, string-powered productions that became the classic “Sound of Philadelphia”.

Butler was an inspired songwriter who collaborated with Otis Redding on “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long”, a signature ballad for Redding; and with Gamble and Huff on “Only the Strong Survive”, later covered by Elvis Presley among others.

His credits also included “For Your Precious Love”, “Never Give You Up” (with Gamble and Huff) and “He Will Break Your Heart”, which Butler helped write after he began thinking about the boyfriends of the groupies he met on the road.

“You go into a town; you’re only going to be there for one night; you want some company; you find a girl; you blow her mind,” Butler told Rolling Stone in 1969.

“Now you know that girl hasn’t been sitting in town waiting for you to come in. She probably has another fellow and the other fellow’s probably in love with her; they’re probably planning to go through the whole thing, right? But you never take that into consideration on that particular night.”

Butler was the son of Mississippi sharecroppers who moved north to Chicago when Butler was three, part of the era’s “Great Migration” of black people out of the South.

He loved all kinds of music as a child and was a good enough singer that a friend suggested he come to a local place of worship, the Travelling Souls Spiritualist Church.

Her grandson, Curtis Mayfield, soon became a close friend. Mayfield died in 1999.

One of his early solo performances was a 1961 cover of “Moon River”, the theme to “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”.

Butler was the first performer to hit the charts with what became a pop standard, but “Moon River” would be associated with Andy Williams after the singer was chosen to perform it at the Academy Awards, a snub Butler long resented.

His other solo hits, some recorded with Mayfield, included “He Will Break Your Heart, “Find Another Girl” and “I’m A-Telling You”.

Butler was married for 60 years to Annette Smith, who died in 2019, and with her had twin sons.

Many of his generational peers had struggled financially and he worked to help them.

He chaired the Rhythm & Blues Foundation, which provides a wide range of assistance to musicians, and pushed the industry to provide medical and retirement benefits.

Butler considered himself relatively lucky, even if he did pass on the chance to own a part of Gamble and Huff’s Philadelphia International recording company.

“You know, I have lived well. My wife probably would say I could’ve lived better,” Butler told the Chicago Reader in 2011.

“Did I make 40, 50 million dollars? No. Did I keep one or two? Yes. The old guys on the street used to say, ‘It’s not how much you make. It’s how much you keep’.”