Jonathan Butler

Jonathan Butler, the guitarist born in South Africa, built a large international following through his seamless fusion of R&B, pop, jazz fusion, and worship music. Although audiences had followed his work since the late 1970s, wider recognition arrived in the late 1980s when he issued 7th Avenue and Jonathan Butler; the second of those projects contained the single “Lies,” which peaked at number 27 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and earned a Grammy nomination for Best R&B Song. Living at various times in England and California, the globally known musician has retained star status in his homeland, where the 2004 release Surrender reached gold certification. As a devout Christian, Butler has repeatedly placed his spiritual convictions and gospel influences alongside his groove-oriented jazz technique on albums such as 2012’s Grace and Mercy and 2015’s Free, a pairing that has kept him inside the jazz chart’s upper tier. He paid tribute to the songwriting of Burt Bacharach and Hal David on 2018’s Close to You and revisited his roots for the Marcus Miller-produced Ubuntu in 2023.

Born in Cape Town during October 1961, Butler began singing and playing acoustic guitar while still a child. The youngest of roughly a dozen siblings, he absorbed an eclectic range of sounds in his early years, admiring local figures such as vocalist Miriam Makeba while also studying American soul and jazz artists thousands of miles away. Stevie Wonder emerged as a primary influence, joined by George Benson, the former hard-bop guitarist who later achieved success as an R&B and pop vocalist.

Butler encountered the realities of South Africa’s apartheid system at a young age, growing up under a regime of racial segregation that mirrored the Jim Crow statutes once enforced in the American South. That oppressive order, later dismantled, supplied the theme for several of his 1980s recordings. Although never a full-time protest artist in the mold of Gil Scott-Heron, Peter Tosh, or Bob Marley, he inserted occasional anti-apartheid statements into his catalog. Fluent first in Afrikaans before mastering English, the teenager was signed in 1977 by British producer Clive Calder to London-based Jive Records; his largely instrumental debut, Introducing Jonathan Butler, appeared that same year and featured bassist Bob Cranshaw, long associated with Sonny Rollins. Critics of the period often likened the young musician to Benson, another artist celebrated for both vocal and guitar work. Soon afterward he captured a Sarie Award, South Africa’s counterpart to the Grammy or Juno.

Butler left South Africa in the early 1980s, relocating to England, home of Jive’s headquarters, where he stayed for seventeen years. He retained a devoted audience throughout the 1980s and 1990s across South Africa, the United States, and Europe. A major commercial peak arrived in 1987 with the self-titled Jive album that included a duet version of the Staple Singers’ “If You’re Ready (Come with Me)” performed alongside British urban contemporary singer Ruby Turner. The follow-up, 1988’s More Than Friends, also sold strongly and yielded the major singles “Lies,” again Grammy-nominated, and “Sarah, Sarah.” Butler continued releasing material for Jive into the early 1990s; later in the decade and at the start of the 2000s he moved to N-Coded Music for three albums: 1997’s Do You Love Me?, 1999’s Story of Life, and 2000’s The Source. After turning forty in October 2001 he departed N-Coded for Warner Bros., which issued Surrender in June 2002.

The 2004 album Worship Project marked the beginning of a more explicit integration of Butler’s faith with his smooth-jazz and R&B leanings. Spirituality remained central even on groove-driven projects such as Jonathan (2005), Brand New Day (2007), So Strong (2010), and Grace and Mercy (2012), the last of which reached the top of the jazz charts.

His debut holiday collection, Merry Christmas to You, appeared in 2013. The next year he collaborated with bassist Marcus Miller, saxophonist Elan Trotman, and additional musicians on Living My Dream, followed in 2015 by the gospel-oriented Free. Returning in 2018 with Close to You, he reinterpreted classic material by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. All three projects landed inside the top five of Billboard’s jazz chart. Christmas Together arrived in September 2019 and included guest contributions from Dave Koz, Keiko Matsui, Kirk Whalum, and others. For 2023’s Ubuntu, Butler traveled back to South Africa to create a recording that honored the spirit and musical heritage of his birthplace; longtime associate Marcus Miller handled production, and the album featured appearances by Stevie Wonder and Keb’ Mo’.