Jerry Butler
Appearances
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
Somehow or another the whole darn thing went wrong But my mama had some great advice So I thought I'd put it in the words of this song I can still hear her saying Boy, boy, boy 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. A whole lot of trouble.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
Oh, so listen to me. Get up off your knees. Because only the strong survive. That's what she said. Only the strong survive. Only the strong survive. Yeah, you've got to be strong. You better hold on.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
Actually, this song and the lyrics. were an actual 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 and told Mama, hey, look, this is the end of the world.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
She said, boy... 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.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
Kenny Gabler and Leon Huff were the co-writers on it, but the introduction that was recited was really from that conversation with my mother.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
You know, 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. 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.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
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.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
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.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
Curtis's grandmother, the Reverend Annabelle Mayfield, was the pastor of this little congregation called the Traveling Soul Spiritualist Church. And Curtis's 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. Because we just had singing in common and loved to do it.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
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 nine years old. He was the little guy. You know, I was 13. I was an old man. And so we kind of kept shoving him to the back, shoving him to the back. until he learned how to play the guitar.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
And then he kind of just took over because he was the real musician out of the group.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
As a matter of fact, it had. My voice went into the baritone register when I was about 13, and it has never come up again.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
Well, you know, Curtis was just the opposite. Curtis always kind of sounded like a little girl, you know. Gotta keep on pushing. Can't stop now. Move up a little higher. 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.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
You know, we were never big and famous, as was Sam Cooke or Lou Rawls with the Pilgrim Travelers and Sam Cooke with the Soulsters. 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,
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
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.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
Because even in Curtis's 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.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
Your precious love means more to me than any love could ever be. Whereas he was writing, gotta keep on pushing. Can't stop now. Move up a little higher. You see?
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
Yes, a poem called They Say, as a matter of fact, as you will hear it in the lyric.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
The only thing that was changed is the title, For Your Precious Love.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
Your precious love Means more to me Than any love could ever be For when I wanted you blue, for that's what love will do. And darling, I'm so surprised, oh, when I first realized that you
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
Actually, The Roosters became The Impressions.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
It was Curtis's idea. Curtis said one day after we had decided that, well, let me give you a little history.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
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 was 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.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
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.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
And one of the little smart aleck friends of hers said, cock-a-doodle-doo! 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.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
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.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
There was a squabble after For Your Precious Love was released because Vivian Carter, who owned VJ 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,
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
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 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.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
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.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
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 starts to look as though we're working for him as opposed to him being just part of the group.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
When we get to the Apollo Theater in New York, they 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.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
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.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
Yes, with Curtis singing in the background. So even though it's a solo record, it's not really. It's more of a duet.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
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 would 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 et cetera, et cetera.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
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 star 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.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
Because I'm Jerry. I'm Jerry always be here. That guy is Jerry going to be gone in the morning.
Fresh Air
Remembering The South African Playwright Who Defied Apartheid
Thank you. Like I love you If he did he would Break your heart He don't love you Like I love you He's trying to tear us apart Fare thee well
NPR News Now
NPR News: 02-21-2025 7PM EST
The first place mother usually takes a young son is to church. Sure. And no matter how off-key or out-of-key that young person sings, somebody's going to say amen. And so you get this encouragement out of the church.