*Just released! Jonathan Butler‘s “I Am That I Am” new single & lyric video has hit the street and the online community. From the album titled “Free” comes another spirited composition and performance from Butler that pays reverence to the Creator, It is the new single and it is “I Am That I Am.”
Jonathan will tour the states in the spring and the summer, then return to his birthplace of South Africa in October of 2016, and fans are invited to join him. He started the Jonathan Butler Foundation in 2013 to provide a purpose for disaffected youth and to aid young musicians in South Africa. Jonathan is committed to his country, his faith, his music, his family and his fans. The album and singles are available at iTunes, Amazon and Spotify. #Free #IAmThatIAm @JButlerGuitar
Born and raised in Athlone, Cape Town, South Africa, during Apartheid, Butler started singing and playing acoustic guitar as a child. Racial segregation 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 Awards.
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. In 1975 his cover of “Please Stay (song)” by The Drifters reached number 2 in South Africa. The same year his cover of “I Love How You Love Me” by The Paris Sisters reached number 4. “I’ll be Home” reached number 16 in 1976.
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. 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.
Butler was signed to Jive Records 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 hit single, “Lies” which reached #25 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, and his cover version of the Staple Singers song “If You’re Ready (Come Go with Me)“, which he performed with Ruby Turner.
In 2001, Butler was featured in a compilation album that was a jazz tribute to Bob Marley produced by Lee Ritenour, A Twist of Marley. Butler’s contribution to the album was a jazz cover of No Woman No Cry.
Butler maintained a loyal following in the 1980s and 1990s, in South Africa, the United States and Europe.
Read/learn MORE at Wikipedia.
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