Biography
Born as Jack Butcher in 1924 in Moline, Illinois, the future performer spent his early years on a farm. Although he picked up guitar, a music career never crossed his mind until he took a job as a local radio disc jockey. Subsequent stints followed at WQUA in Moline and WIRE in Indianapolis. Trips to Nashville eventually prompted him to pursue recording opportunities, leading him to join Tree Publishing as a songwriter and to cut his first sides for the Dial label. His own composition “I Love Country” climbed to number 21 on the Cash Box charts in 1965, the same year he made his Grand Ole Opry debut. He moved to Nashville in 1966. Two years with Epic preceded a switch to Dot Records in 1968, where his debut single “Baby Ain’t That Love” reached number 40 on the Billboard country survey. Between 1971 and 1972 he scored a Top 30 entry with a reading of Donovan’s “Catch The Wind” and placed in the Top 60 with “They Call The Wind Maria.” Across his career he tallied just eight Billboard country chart appearances; the final one, “The Man On Page 602”—a reference to a revealing photograph in the Sears catalogue—appeared in 1975 on the Antique label under the alias Zoot Fenster. In later decades his deep, instantly recognizable voice earned widespread recognition through commercials and voice-over work. He passed away in 2011 after an extended illness whose details were never made public.
Albums