Artie Butler | |
---|---|
Birth name | Arthur Butler |
Born | Brooklyn, New York, U.S. | December 2, 1942
Genres | Popular music |
Occupation(s) | Composer, arranger, songwriter, session musician |
Instrument | Keyboards |
Years active | 1957–present |
Website | artiebutler |
Arthur Butler (born December 2, 1942) is an American arranger, composer, songwriter, and session musician. In a long career, he has been involved in numerous hit records and other recordings, and has been awarded over 60 gold and platinum albums.
Butler was born in Brooklyn, New York, [1] and learned to play various instruments including piano, clarinet and drums as a child. He attended Erasmus Hall High School. [2] At the age of 13, he auditioned for Henry Glover of King Records, who offered him a contract as a result. His single, "Lock, Stock and Barrel", credited to Arthur Butler, was issued on the DeLuxe label in 1957, but was not successful. [1] [3] [4]
By the early 1960s he was working as an assistant at Bell Sound Studios in New York City, where he met songwriters and record producers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. He began working for them in the Brill Building, initially as a pianist and then as an arranger. He contributed to records by The Drifters and others before, in 1964, arranging his first hit, "Sally Go 'Round the Roses" by The Jaynetts, on which he claims to have played all the instruments except guitar. [5] He co-wrote Alvin Robinson's "Down Home Girl" with Leiber (quickly covered in 1965 by The Rolling Stones), and later in 1964 joined the team working with songwriters Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich. He arranged and contributed keyboards to several hits on Red Bird Records, including The Shangri-Las' "Leader of the Pack" and "Remember (Walking in the Sand)", The Dixie Cups' "Chapel of Love," and The Ad Libs' "The Boy from New York City." He also arranged Neil Diamond's early releases, including "Solitary Man" and "Cherry, Cherry," and Janis Ian's "Society's Child". [1] [6]
In 1967 he moved to Los Angeles. The following year he started work for A&M Records, where he worked with jazz musicians including Herbie Hancock, and contributed keyboards on Joe Cocker's hit "Feelin' Alright". [1] He then went freelance, and suggested to Louis Armstrong that he should record the song "What a Wonderful World". Armstrong agreed, and Butler arranged and recorded the song with Armstrong despite the opposition of ABC Records President Larry Newton. [7] From the 1970s onwards, Butler arranged many commercially successful records, including The Raiders' "Indian Reservation", Vicki Lawrence's "The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia", Neil Sedaka's "Laughter in the Rain", Barry Manilow's "Copacabana", and Dionne Warwick's "I'll Never Love This Way Again". [1] In 1987 he co-wrote, with lyricist Phyllis Molinary, "Here's to Life", intended for and first performed by Peggy Lee, [8] but first recorded in 1990 by Shirley Horn and later by Barbra Streisand. [9] He has been awarded over 60 gold and platinum albums during his career. [10]
In the 1970s he began working on films, creating the scores for The Love Machine (1971), What's Up Doc? (1972), The Harrad Experiment (1973), the TV movie Wonder Woman (1974), For Pete's Sake (1974), Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins (1975), the Disney film The Rescuers (1977), Sextette (1978), Sultan and the Rock Star (1980), and O'Hara's Wife (1982). In 1992, he was nominated for an Emmy award for the CBS miniseries Sinatra . In 2004 he worked with Mike Stoller on a stage musical, Laughing Matters, which premiered in New York in 2006, [1] and in 2011 worked again with Stoller and lyricist Iris Rainer Dart on the musical The People in the Picture . [11]
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (November 2019) |
Year | Title | Notes | Label | |
---|---|---|---|---|
1968 | Have You Met Miss Jones? | CTI Records | [12] | |
1970 | The Original Cleanhead | With Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson | BluesTime | |
1973 | The Harrad Experiment | Soundtrack for film by Ted Post | Capitol Records | [13] |
2011 | The People in the Picture | Broadway production alongside Mike Stoller | N/A |
Year | Title | Notes | Label | |
---|---|---|---|---|
1963 | Sweet September / Freedom | With Alan Lorber | 20th Century Fox Records | [14] |
1963 | Theme From "The Cardinal" / Waltz for J. & M. | 20th Century Fox Records | [15] | |
1964 | Thème Du Film "Le Cardinal" | French release of his previous two records | 20th Century Fox Records | [16] |
1967 | Ode to Billie Joe / Soul Brother | Produced by Ted Cooper | Epic | [17] |
1968 | Max's Brasilian What / Something Stupid | CTI Records | [12] | |
1971 | Feelin' Alright / Alice In Wonderland | Produced by Charles Stern | Verve Records | [18] |
1971 | The White Fox | Produced by Neely Plumb | Scepter Records | [19] |
The Coasters are an American rhythm and blues/rock and roll vocal group who had a string of hits in the late 1950s. With hits including "Searchin'", "Young Blood", "Charlie Brown", "Poison Ivy", and "Yakety Yak", their most memorable songs were written by the songwriting and producing team of Leiber and Stoller. Although the Coasters originated outside of mainstream doo-wop, their records were so frequently imitated that they became an important part of the doo-wop legacy through the 1960s. In 1987, they were the first group inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The Exciters were an American pop music group of the 1960s. They were originally a girl group, with one male member being added afterwards. At the height of their popularity the group consisted of lead singer Brenda Reid, Herb Rooney, Carolyn Johnson and Lillian Walker.
Leiber and Stoller were an American songwriting and record production duo, consisting of lyricist Jerome Leiber and composer Michael Stoller. As well as many R&B and pop hits, they wrote numerous standards for Broadway.
The Robins were a successful and influential American R&B group of the late 1940s and 1950s, one of the earliest such vocal groups who established the basic pattern for the doo-wop sound. They were founded by Ty Terrell, and twin brothers Billy Richards and Roy Richards. Bobby Nunn soon joined the lineup. They began their career as the Bluebirds but switched to recording as the Robins in May 1949. In 1955, the group disagreed over whether to remain on the West Coast or sign with Atlantic Records and move to the East Coast. This led to a split within the group. Music producers and songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller took former Robins members Nunn and Carl Gardner, recruited singers Leon Hughes and Billy Guy, and formed the Coasters. The founding Richards brothers and Tyrell continued to record as the Robins until 1961.
"Hound Dog" is a twelve-bar blues song written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Recorded originally by Big Mama Thornton on August 13, 1952, in Los Angeles and released by Peacock Records in late February 1953, "Hound Dog" was Thornton's only hit record, selling over 500,000 copies, spending 14 weeks in the R&B charts, including seven weeks at number one. Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll", ranked at 318 in the 2021 iteration of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in February 2013.
Red Bird Records was a record label founded by American pop music songwriters Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, and George Goldner in 1964. Though often thought of as a "girl-group" label, female-led acts made up only 40% of the artist roster on Red Bird and its associated labels. However, female-led acts also accounted for more than 90% of the label's charting records.
"Spanish Harlem" is a song recorded by Ben E. King in 1960 for Atco Records. It was written by Jerry Leiber and Phil Spector and produced by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. "Spanish Harlem" was King's first hit away from The Drifters, peaking at number 15 on Billboard's rhythm and blues and number 10 in pop music chart.
"On Broadway" is a song written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil in collaboration with the team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.
Uriah Heep Live is a double live album by British rock group Uriah Heep, released in April 1973 in the US by Mercury Records, and in May 1973 in the UK by Bronze Records. It was the band's first live album. The album was recorded by the Pye Mobile Unit, with Alan Perkins as engineer.
King Records was an American label founded in 1943 by Syd Nathan in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. The label owned several divisions, including Federal Records, which launched the career of James Brown. It released original material until 1975.
Mirrors is a 1975 album by Peggy Lee on A&M Records. The album is made up of neo-cabaret "art songs" sung by Peggy, written and produced by rock & roll pioneers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller and mostly arranged & conducted by Johnny Mandel.
Jerome Louis "J.J." Jackson is an American soul/R&B singer, songwriter, and arranger. His singing style is as a belter. Jackson best known for the song "But It's Alright", which he co-wrote with Pierre Tubbs. The song was released in 1966 and then re-released in 1969, to chart success on both occasions. The liner notes to his 1967 album, J.J. Jackson, on Calla Records, stated that he weighed 285 pounds.
"Feelin' Alright?", also known as "Feeling Alright", is a song written by Dave Mason of the English rock band Traffic for their eponymous 1968 album Traffic. It was also released as a single, and failed to chart in both the UK and the US, but it did reach a bubbling under position of #123 on the Billboard Hot 100. Joe Cocker performed a more popular rendition of the song that did chart in the U.S. Both Traffic's and Cocker's versions appear in the 2012 movie Flight. The song was also featured in the 2000 film Duets, sung by Huey Lewis.
Alfred V. De Lory was an American record producer, arranger, conductor and session musician. He was the producer and arranger of a series of worldwide hits by Glen Campbell in the 1960s, including John Hartford's "Gentle on My Mind", Jimmy Webb's "By the Time I Get to Phoenix", "Wichita Lineman" and "Galveston". He was also a member of the 1960s Los Angeles session musicians known as The Wrecking Crew, and inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2007.
Tamiko Jones is an American singer. Her most successful record was "Touch Me Baby " in 1975.
Alvin "Shine" Robinson, sometimes credited as Al Robinson, was an American rhythm and blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter, based in New Orleans. His recording of "Something You Got" reached the Billboard Hot 100 in 1964.
Ralph F. Palladino, known as Ralph Dino, and John Anthony Sembello, were an American singing and songwriting duo in the early 1970s. They recorded one album together, which included the original version of the song "Pearl's a Singer", co-written with leading songwriters and record producers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, and later a hit in the UK for Elkie Brooks.
The In Instrumentals is an album by jazz trombonist and arranger Kai Winding recorded in 1965 for the Verve label.
Can't Take My Eyes Off You is a studio album by Nancy Wilson, released on Capitol Records in 1970. It was produced by David Cavanaugh, with arrangements and conducting by Phil Wright and Jimmy Jones.
Garry Sherman is an American musician, arranger, composer and orchestrator, who was involved from the 1960s in many hit records as well as Broadway shows, film soundtracks and advertising campaigns. He has also maintained a successful parallel career as a sports podiatrist.