Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:21):
Welcome to the latest edition of one hundred The Ed
Gordon Podcast. Today a conversation with singer songwriter Jonathan Butler.
At the age of seven, the native South African began
performing for segregated audiences. By thirteen, he was a teen
idol and signed to a record contract. His first single
(00:43):
was the first by a black artist to be played
on white radio stations. By the mid eighties, his music
was being heard in other countries, including America. In nineteen
eighty seven, his song Lies would become a big hit
and nominated for a Grammy. Other hits followed Sarah Sarah,
More Than Friends, and the gospel favorite Falling in Love
(01:06):
with Jesus. Butler would release a number of albums and
his music would become a staple on smooth jazz stations,
and he gained a strong fan base along the way.
He's always infused much of his music with elements from
his homeland. His latest project is no different. His new album, Umbuntu,
(01:31):
not only had much of the sound of South Africa,
but also a mindset. Hey man, I've been a fan,
as you know, from from day one, man, and you
know you just don't disappoint. Let's jump right into the
new project. And it's interesting to me because I'd love
for you to tell people what it's about, because it's
(01:52):
really the name is taken from a philosophy.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yes it is, Yes, it is indeed, you know, especially
coming from South Africa, it's a it's a philosophy that
I've learned growing up with with people like the late
amazing Desmond tou Tou, who I've had the privilege of
meeting on many occasions, and it just kind of revealed
(02:15):
Ubuntu as a movement not that's across the you know,
across South Africa, in our community, and and just him
being the founder of the reconciliation movement in South Africa,
which people thought was scared to turn upside down, and
it really showed me through him, I found Ubuntu to
(02:39):
be something that was it's just it's within our community,
it's in it's in our society, and it's humanity towards others,
even in the face of what we've had to endure
from a party to segregation to economical a party. Even now,
but having having had the experience of being around Asmutu,
(03:02):
I found, you know, this is the perfect time for
me to express this movement. I think it's more of
a movement that it is just a statement. You know.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Yeah, let me ask you this before we jump into that.
I too had the pleasure of getting to know Bishop
Tou Tou over the years. He was truly you know,
some people you see and you think, now, they can't
be that way, right, that's the sod they put on work, right,
you know, But he was an extraordinary man. What you saw,
(03:31):
as the old saying goes, is what you got.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
You know, I'm around a lot of people from the
time I landed Servia in America and in the eighties
early ages, people thought that about me, like, how can
you be so like you know, you know where you
come from, you know what your country's been through. How
do you handle how do you rise above all of that?
And is it truly you what we're feeling? Is it
(03:56):
truly you what we're seeing from you? Are you reading
this guy? The guy who embraces people? You know? And
I think having left home all these years was one
way for me to also open my eyes to see
that the world I wanted to see was a united world,
you know, when I left South Africa it wasn't. And
then during making during the making of this album Ubuntu
(04:20):
pre pandemic, and you know, because you know Marksmuller, we
went to South Africa to make this album. So my
first recording was in seventy three when I was only twelve,
you know, So to go back in my sixties and
make a record with the greatest producer of all and
having him see, you know that the world I wanted
(04:42):
to see was a united South Africa. When I left,
it wasn't that way. I was playing for different you know,
whites and then blacks, and you know, South Africa has
different layers colored blacks, whites and all of this systemic
stuff that the Dutch, the English colonization. It's an interesting country.
(05:04):
It's a beautiful country. The music that I make, it
represents all of the people from that I come from.
You know, the Koi Koy people is really my tribe,
is really my connection with my parents. My father was
from Liberia, Monrovia. My mother's Sneakwa, so she's Cooi son.
So I thought, this is a kind of journey back
(05:25):
looking back. And then during this apart, during this pandemic,
I kind of a lot of things were triggering, Like
you know, the death of George Floyd was a huge
trigger that divided the United States was a huge trigger
for me, and I think that's how we sort of
came through this process of making this album, you know,
because I wanted to say everything I wanted to say
(05:49):
based on what I've seen living here now for almost
what over twenty five years.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
And that's what I was going to ask you, Jonathan,
the idea of coming from as you live as a
child through a part time and understanding the division and
what that means. What would you tell before we jump
back into the music, but what would you tell Americans
who maybe aren't looking at this division in the way
they should and what this country ultimately could be if
(06:16):
we continue down this road.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Well, it seems like it's a conversation that's been hiding,
that's been in hiding, you know. And I mean in
South Africa it was like an uprising of what you
could call it an uprising, but it was a uprising
that created a conversation with the Dutch and the English
and the Zulu and the Sutu and the Causa. And
(06:40):
it was it was violent, it was it was you know,
it was violent. But I fought I felt, yeah, in America,
there's this either there's blind spots from whites. In my opinion,
they have a lot of blind spots. To what I've
seen in South Africa. White privilege is literally in your
face in South Africa, even to this very you know.
(07:01):
I mean, I always make a like coming to my friends,
I said, man, these white guys knew how to carve
out this country, didn't they. You know, look at us,
we're living down here and that you know, they threw
us all against the ocean and they live up in
the hills. So there's no way that you can escape it.
But if you're a person like me who feels the
need to speak truth to power, I think nobody really
(07:22):
wants to have a conversation. And as painful as it
might be, I think for Americans, it's a perfect time
to have a conversation and to be really honest about it,
you know, because I've literally experienced racism in this country
towards me in the last two years or three years,
and I've been here almost over twenty something years, and
(07:44):
so it really kind of wow. It was a wild
moment for me when I was standing you know, and
whole foods of all places, you know, or in Napa Valley,
there I was, you know, attacked by a dude who
were basically it says black people don't tip, you know,
in a way, that's what he's saying. But it started
(08:05):
a conversation. And I think, if you want, if I
can say anything to my black brothers and white and
sisters here in this country, you know, we we just
got to stop being afraid to have a real conversation.
And I think, and we have to stop worrying about
whether our base or our fans are going to be
affected by the fact that you really really stand for something,
(08:27):
you know. So I really think, man, you know, to
who much is given, much is expected. And I think
I come from a country where you know, Mandala to
to you know, all these guys they went to prison
for this, and they stood up for it, and they
they they shared all of what they had and when
(08:47):
you met them in person, so you're so much more
of a light than you saw a heaviness.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah, man, And that is the God's honest truth. I'm
not I've met so many people over the years, and
you know, we're all a pretty much the same in
my eyes. But those two men, yeah, it was something different. No,
it's about those two men truly absolutely, yeah, absolutely, yeah,
go ahead.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Now, I having met both guys, I literally, in a
way I took. What I took away from it was
the light. Their spirits were light. Even though they had
gone through such heavy, heavy, heavy struggles, their spirits were light.
They talked about music. I remember, you know, I take
every year in October, I take forty Americans to South
(09:36):
Africa to see my country and I show them. I
show them everything. They eat everything, they hear everything, and
when they go to the prison, you know, uh, to
to Robin Island, the year stories of Mendela, Walter Sisulu
and all these guys discussing jazz. You know, it's discussing
(09:56):
who's who's Algero and who's Jonathan Butler versus Clue. But
he doesn't sound like he's from home. He's George Benson.
So it's amazing that it wasn't just that they were there,
they also were in touch with what was happening in
the real world outside.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
You know, you you've interestingly enough, always been able to
marry your roots to your music, and throughout you've always
at least put one song, if not more, that really
reflects where you come from. But this album. And you
talk about Marcus Miller, who's a genius. This album, I
(10:34):
think more than anyone that I can recall, really has
a through thread in all the songs. Was that intentional?
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Yes, it was intentional because I realized that there's an
ancestral uh what what I call an ancestral desire, an
ancestral call an ancestral connection, and that when I opened
myself up to that connection, it literally flows without me
even knowing that I'm literally it doing it. You know.
(11:26):
I remember doing something for Marcus Muller on his album.
He wanted me a song called Sublimity, an amazing song,
and he said, you know, I just want you to
do your thing, just do whatever you know and and
I said, oh man. And when I played the song,
He's standing right next to me, and I just felt
(11:47):
Kate tom coming right out of me. You know that
all the sounds and all the musicians that taught me
when I was a little boy in South Africa that
I had the privilege to learn, and just to watch
that came out, it's it's the roots. Something happened also
last last three weeks ago I was doing I had
(12:08):
something they did a tribute to Prince. And you know,
I remember Prince was very very popular among the whites
in South Africa, so a lot of us did not
really have that connection, you know. But I had to
sing Purple Rain, you know, so they say, uh, they say,
pick me for Purple Rain. And then so I was
(12:28):
listening to Purple Rain all the time, and I was like,
oh my god, this is Prince. Nobody can do like Prince.
Nobody's no one. So I get to the rehearsal and
and Sheila standing you know there and Candy Dolphins there
that worked the Prince, and so she said, what are
you going to do? How are you going to do this?
So I said, what do you know? I need to
(12:50):
find Jonathan Butler in the song, So give me a minute,
give me a few minutes, and you know, and this
is what the album Buntu means. It kind of. I
went home. I really told Malcus Miller, I wanted to
go home and find Jonathan Butler. That's it.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Yeah, you've been able to do that, and also you know,
still marry other things to it. The the one I
think everybody's gonna end up talking about is you take
Stevie Wonders, Superwoman, Where were You When I Needed You
is one of his, you know, one of his fantastic songs.
But instead of just doing it, you do put your
(13:26):
flavor and your country's flavor on it.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Yes, did you.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Have trepidation in that or did it just come naturally when.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
The summer came you and lo around? Now the sun
is gone and love cannot be found. Where will you when.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
I need you?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Last winter? Let me tell you I never wanted ever
recorded Steve. We wanted the song because he is He's
like my brother, He's like my my Berkeley College of Music,
you know. Uh, I studied Stevie's Alpie's you know when
I was a little boy. I mean, I wanted to
be this guy so much. And so this is a
(14:11):
very surreal moment meeting him, you know, over the past years.
So it was the first song that Marcus wand have
picked and I couldn't believe it. He started the song
in the studio with a very simple bassline, you know,
just like a simple bom bom, and I was like,
what is he playing? And he said, just follow me, man,
(14:32):
just play your guitar and follow me. And he said,
and he said he stopped. Do you know when the
winter came, you know when, and I said, yeah, I
know all of it. He said, well, that's a song
we're working on right now. So I was like, I
had I had my friend to goozo. She was in
the next studio, and Marcus said, maybe if we can
get her, you know, if we can get her in here,
(14:53):
she can do this little chant thing for us. So
it made me comfortable to do Stevie song in the
home way in a South African way and present it
to him and say, Stevie, I've got something to play,
you know, And so I sent it to him. I said, hey,
you know, I got a call a voice message from
(15:15):
him the day the next day and he said, man,
he said, thank you for the gift you sent me
this morning. You know, everything about it is amazing, you know,
the violin, the singer, who's the singer that singing in
the background, and so he really gave me his blessing.
And he ended by saying, if there's anything you want
(15:36):
me to do, let me know. And that's all I
wanted to see you say, it's like, and he, you know,
he graciously came and played. You know, we went to
the studio and he played on it and it just
really Yeah, I made my whole my whole year.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Yeah. Man, it's a it's a great rendition. You mentioned
George Floyd earlier in our conversation here, and you have
a song on there that struck me because the way
you deliver it, you know what you're talking about, yet
it can escape you for a moment. It's so melodic
and so and then all of a sudden you realize
(16:11):
and it's called our Voices Matter. Talk to me about
the creation of that. It's it's an extraordinary song.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Our Voices mattered. The day that we all the world
saw the killing of George Floyd was the day I
kind of had a South African moment, you know, a
moment of my country, and I thought I wanted to
write a song, you know, And I spoke to I believe, Yes,
(16:40):
I remember I was on the phone day cause about
something and it was about the very subject of George Floyd.
And you talk about how how you know what that
situation meant to all of us, And I said, Dave,
you know we are we are the ones that people
will listen to. We have you have people, you know,
(17:02):
you have a platform and I have a platform, and
we we can talk to people, and we need to
say something as a music community. If we don't say anything, no,
you know, it shows that we are really we're blinding ourselves,
were blinded by you know, our popularity, our base or whatever.
(17:22):
And I called a friend of mine and I said,
I really want to write this song. This is a
conversation that should be had with every musician. And I
became really like, like, how can I say spirited, you know,
fervently you know, uh, sort of fervently spirited about sending
(17:43):
this message out there, you know, and calling on some
of my friends. Jeffrey Osbond was one of them, became
Gladly Mason and Candy Dolph. A lot of people came
and supported the song, but we wanted to do it
more of an unplugged version of it, so you know,
but again, the sentiment and and and the tone for
(18:03):
me is to is to always make make that statement
of this is what's happening in the world. You know,
this is really it's the same.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
When I wrote with Tommy Simms, we wrote when Love
Comes In. I had no idea that there was so
many people who would have died during the pandemic. So
I think the record covered so much ground. And I
worked with the Russell Farante with Yellow Jackets and we
did a piece and Shelter. I felt it was it
was such a beautiful piece of music. A calming moment
(18:38):
just for all of us is to be lock and lockdown,
but in a place where we can reflect, come together,
you know, work together help each other, which we did.
I think in the pandemic kind of made all of
us musicians come together a little bit more to help
each other out, you know, But I don't know. Sometimes
(19:00):
it's uh, it takes. It takes a lot of bravery
and a lot of courage to to and and it
kind of you kind of feel alone when you step
out into that place where you speak truth to power.
You know, there's nobody but you in that place where
you're standing and saying what you're saying.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
You know, you also have keV Lowe on this Yes
album as well. You know, I think about about our
mutual buddy, Gerald Albright in the collaborations that you've done,
you know, the years. Talk to me about how keV
came in this project.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
I thought it was a genius that Marcus called keV.
He told me since and I think you know we
got a you got a number on keV. I said, no,
I don't have I could get a number on Kim,
I know who works with him. So he said, I
think it'd be great to have Kevin on the song
because it just has a different compared to all the
other tunes. There's two songs that Marcus wrote, silver Rain
(19:57):
and and uh there's another piece, but this one just
had a different It had a different emotion about it.
You know, it was about the pandemic. It was about
the thousands of people that died. And my friend Tommy Simmons,
he was I waited months for him to finish this
(20:17):
song because was like, man, when when are we gonna
get something to record? But the lyric is is so deep,
I mean, and I think cap Mo brings this incredible
maturity to the message, explaining the message, you know, and
it's a it's a really powerful tune.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Yeah. You also you mentioned silver Rain. It's got a
reggae twist to it. Yes, yes, you know.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
You know.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
I think about what you've been able to do again
throughout your career and and afrobeats and kind of international
music is very popular now right, You've been kind of
trumpeting that for a long time. Give me a sense
of how you get people to understand that really, at
the end of the day, great music is great music.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
That's true. True, true, that's true. I've been doing it,
you know, I've been sort of trumpeting it for a
long time. Even at home when our country was divided.
You know, there was a lot a lot of radio
was American music and British music. You know, there wasn't
a lot of African music on radio. So I felt
(21:28):
like I was like the one who got away and
decided to do, you know, do my own thing. But
if you see it now, man, music from Lagos, music
from from from the Congo, from everywhere from South Africa.
The grooves are incredible. The beats that are coming from
from all of all of Africa is amazing and so too.
(21:53):
And it's it's you know, I guess where I'm at now,
and say twenty years ago, had this happen twenty years ago,
it would be, you know, a different place. I would
be in a different place. But I'm just excited that
the generation today. When I go back to South Africa
every year, I hear incredible music. Man, Just young people
whose ability to put Afro music. And I always say
(22:18):
when I'm there, I say, you know, we can't all
go to America, but you know what, but maybe we
can make America come to us. So let's keep our
chops up. Let's really just try to keep our chops up.
And I'm involved. I'm going to be involved with about
twenty six countries in South Africa, you know, on an
(22:39):
ambassador level, talking about bringing South African music and all
from all of the regions of the maybea wherever into America.
So I'm I'm really like excited that even because the
world's getting smaller. You know, we've been talking about soon
now we can make music and we can we cannot
(23:00):
get the if we cannot get the world to come
to us, maybe if we can all go there, we
can maybe let them come and hear what we got
to say.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Did you have to make a conscious decision? I think
about when Lives hit so big for you and then
Sarah Sarah, and you could have continued and said I'm
only going to do that kind of music. You could
have been great R and B and without kind of
keeping your roots alive and your music. Did you have
a moment you had to think about that.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
You know what I think, deep down inside I had
I was always wrestling with my faith too, you know,
because I was very young. I got married young. I
was twenty one or twenty two when I got married,
my first child and moved to London and drive records, lives,
all that stuff came out. And but I always loved jazz.
(23:54):
I always loved guitar stuff, you know. And for a
minute there, I I I don't think Give Records actually
believed or imagine that Lies would go platinum, you know,
I would be nominated for a Grammy. They thought they
would sign me and it would make a couple of
you sell a couple of records, and that'll be it.
(24:15):
So they had no idea. They didn't They didn't imagine
they South Africans too, you know, that owned the company.
So it turned out that Lies, you know, here I
am on Johnny Carson et and I'm in all these
you know. And then at the same time, I'm sort
of a young Christian just became a young Christian. I
sort of, I sort of came out of the drugs
(24:39):
and the heavy drugs and rock cartel dealers, playing for
them and leaving South Africa and so I was on
a clean path. Lies comes along, and now I've got
all the success and you know, I'm on tour with
Whitney Houston and but the most songs and albums I wrote,
the more I kind of I wasn't. You know. There's
(25:04):
some songs that I really don't want to sing no more,
but there songs like Lies, I still do, Sarah, I
have to, you know, take care of me. I hear
them yelling it out, you know, and you know, the
one song that they yell at a lot mostly is
like can you sing balling your love of jeez? You
know That's like I had no idea, but it was.
(25:26):
It was Clive Calder who said, you know, hey, you
know pop music is fickle. You know, R and V
muns is it has a long life. Jazz has a
long life. And if you want to do something else,
if you want to, you know, I can see you doing.
I would love for you to do a record that
kind of is an instrumental project. So so the first
(25:50):
one was instrumental. Then after Lies, I did a record
called with More Than Friends Sarah Sarah, and then HeLa
Land came and Deliverance came, and then I sort of
you know, departed from R and B completely. There was
a deportation for me to go out of that, you
(26:10):
know and not and then come back around into the
world of smooth jazz, which I had no idea that
I was going to be called the morn Blue Jazz
autice or the you know jazz guitars Jonathan Butler, you know,
and I'm like right behind me all these gold records
when I was a kid singing. So I've always had
(26:30):
to kind of accept both duel careers as so to speaks.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
What's being famous? We should note in your in South Africa.
You know, you started performing at like six or seven,
first record deal I think twelve thirteen. You've been famous
your entire life essentially. Yeah, you know, what has that
been for you? Because at some point, particularly when you
start that young, you have to find a grounding if
(26:59):
you will, yes, or usually it's off the deep end
you mentioned, you know you were going off. Was your
faith that brought you back?
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Yeah, it was my faith that brought me back. I
mean I grew up in the family that really you know. Look,
my mother sold alcohol to keep us, you know, to
feed us. You know, my father didn't work, you know,
We lived in a shack, you know, lived in a
three bedroom shack with a toilet for our house toilet.
You know, when I started singing at age five, I
(27:31):
realized now. I was talking to my older sister this year,
she's eighty one, and she said, you know, like you,
I started working for mom when I was fourteen, and
you worked for mom since you were five. And Mom
depended on me so much that whenever I went out
to a party, Mom would come and find me so
that I could wake up and go to work. So
(27:55):
life was really a challenge for me, for all of
us the Butler's. When I became famous, you know, that
was I enjoyed the popular I enjoyed the attention, but
you know the money was that was that wasn't something
I could hold on too. That was sort of you know,
(28:20):
there was no never never land for me. It was
like it belonged to my mom. It belonged to my brothers,
my sisters, my niece. They all lived on the shack,
and they also came discouragement. I also became I think
the years that I started really getting heavy into drugs,
those were the years of discouragement where you know, I
realized I didn't have anybody to encourage me. There was
(28:42):
nobody to help me figure out life, especially having been
molested on in show business at the age of you know,
five six, you know, all those years and my brother
to this day, when I told him in February, I said, man,
you know, this is this is these are the things
(29:02):
that happened to me under your nose, you know, when
we were touring. And he said, I never knew this
was happening to you. I said, well, I lived with
this for a long long time, you know. So for me,
I still money. I still don't have sort of a appreciate.
I appreciate being sixty years old and still doing gigs,
(29:25):
but you know, I never had I was never taught
to sort of be diligent about finances and money. It
always belonged to other people. What what what the reward
I get is the testimonies of people telling me that
their lives are changed and different because they heard me
sing this song or they they touched because I said something.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
You know. Yeah, before I let you go, man, let
me ask you about because you're on tour this summer
as well, yeah you are, And I say this, uh
not because you're on the show right now. But truly,
you are one of my favorite live performers. There's a
joy I think that you bring in your performing. You know,
(30:10):
some people no knock on them, but it is a
gig that come out, they do it, they go yes,
and it's rope to them. You know. It's like, Okay,
I have seen you on numerous occasions, and each time
there seems to be at least either you're a hell
of an actor or it's real. There seems to be
a true joy. And what you receive from you know,
(30:32):
from the audience, is that fair.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Oh, I'm pretty much alive. I'm pretty much like a
giddy kid. You know. I think I'm the sixty one
year old kid that never never stopped loving what he
does and what he was given to do. And and
the humor. My sense of humor comes from my family.
(30:56):
Never taking myself serious, you know, I think it's It's
one of the things that I've learned from myself. It's like,
even if I have a bad note or a bad gig,
it's like I never take it seriously. I feel like
my heart is all too I told people all the time,
I said I lived to see people happy. That's what
I live for. I live to want to make people happy,
(31:19):
and I'm grateful to get paid you know as well.
But what you see is real. I mean I love music, genuinely,
genuinely love music. If you were if I could turn
this thing around, you'll see. This house is like a
lab full of instruments. And I was just looking up
an old guitar that I just had from eighteenth century.
(31:40):
Who the builder was. I'm truly in love with it, man,
I think this, You know, I don't have many options.
You know. My mother used to say, either you'll be
a preacher or but you were born to sing. So
I just know that this is all I know. That's
all I know.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
But we appreciate, and I have appreciated for a long
time the gift that you bring us, man, And it
is always great to talk to you. Congratulations on the
new project and I will thank you. Who loves music.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Thank you for picking up man. I appreciate it and
good seeing you.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Again.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Jonathan Butler's new album, Bomboonsen is out now. One is
produced by Ed Gordon Media and distributed by iHeartMedia. Carol
Johnson Green and Sharie Weldon are our bookers. Our editor
is Lance Patton Gerald Albright composed and performed our theme.
(32:44):
Please join me on Twitter and Instagram at edel Gordon
and on Facebook at ed Gordon Media