Right Track (Remaster) Billy Butler

• 1 Right Track 02:28
• 2 Can't Live Without Her 02:15
• 3 Found True Love 02:32
• 4 Boston Monkey 02:06
• 5 Tomorrow is Another Day 02:08
• 6 (I've Got a Feelin) You're Gonna Be Sorry 02:21
• 7 I Can't Work No Longer 02:25
• 8 Nevertheless 02:06
• 9 Gotta Get Away 02:15
• 10 (You Make Me Think ) You Ain't Ready 02:31
• Total Runtime 23:07

Info for Right Track (Remaster)

Marginal Records presents 'Billy Butler: Right Track, the Very Best of and More,' featuring the original 1960s recordings on the Okeh label by this Chicago-based singer.

„Marginal, the import label of release for the lengthy, quasi-legal Nuggets series Soul Cargo, as well as an excellent Billy Stewart collection, did Chicago soul fans yet another favor with this collection, a bulked-up version of the former Right Track: The Very Best Of. Adding eight more tracks makes it function as a complete-on-Okeh compilation, featuring both sides of each single plus all of Billy Butler's 1966 LP Right Track. Thanks to his sweet voice and the songwriting/production expertise of Curtis Mayfield, Billy Butler's songs were right next to the Impressions in terms of quality, and quite a few of these ('Found True Love,' 'My Sweet Woman') haven't been anthologized as much as they deserve. Fans of the early Impressions as well as good-time Chicago soul perennials like Major Lance or Bob & Earl will find much to love here, including '(You Make Me Think) You Ain't Ready' and '(I've Got a Feeling) You're Gonna Be Sorry.' The early singles are much more enjoyable than the album tracks; OKeh was aiming Butler at the same audience that picked up on Major Lance's 'Monkey Time,' resulting in a few novelties like 'Boston Monkey.' With just a few exceptions, though, Butler's recordings for OKeh were of a very high quality.“ (John Bush, AMG)

Produced by Carl Davis, Gerald Sims

Digitally remastered

Billy Butler
was the Chicago singer who creatively most benefited from Curtis Mayfield’s encouragement and early tutelage. Billy is Jerry Butler’s younger brother, so naturally Jerry and Curtis were both major influences in Billy’s early development as a singer/songwriter. Mayfield supervised and Carl Davis produced his first session at OKeh on 8 May ‘63, and they co-wrote his first recording ‘Found True Love’ that was arranged by Johnny Pate.

Chart action wasn’t any friend to Billy Butler – a series of badly timed events dogged progress throughout his singing career but thankfully he persisted long enough to produce many beautiful love songs and some of the greatest ‘uptown soul’ of all time. Curtis provided Billy with songs like ‘Nevertheless’, ‘You’re Gonna Be Sorry’, ‘Does It Matter’ and ‘I’m Just A Man’ for his early OKeh sessions. But, it was a re-working of the Impressions’ ‘I Can’t Work No Longer’ that gave Billy Butler his biggest chart success when it hit #6 US R&B in June ’65. The insistently uptempo ‘Right Track’ made #24 R&B in July ‘66 and became the song that he’s best know for in Europe. Billy parted company with OKeh and his group the Chanters in ’67 to pursue a solo career with producer Carl Davis at Brunswick. His solo efforts made no commercial impact during the next two years but Billy put out some great records starting with the superb ‘Love Grows Bitter’. He wrote one of his finest songs ‘I Stand Accused’ that scored a big hit for co-author Jerry. Gene Chandler recorded ‘Bless Our Love’, ‘A Song Called Soul’ and ‘No Peace, No Satisfaction’, Lavern Baker, the Artistics and Jackie Wilson also cut his songs. The Opals had ‘Does It Matter’ and Otis Leavill cut ‘Let Her Love Me’ and ‘To Be Or Not To Be’ - the list goes on and on.

Billy formed his new group Infinity with ex Chanter Errol Banks, Phyllis Knotts and Larry Wade in 1967. When the their first record ‘Get On The Case’ took off it raced to #41 R&B within a few days of release and caught Stax (Fountain’s distributor) on the hop because they couldn’t supply enough records to meet public demand. Infinity put this disappointment behind them and signed to Mercury for their next two singles but things did not improve. Undaunted the Brothers Butler set up their next venture, Memphis Records in 1970 whose roster included the Unifics, James Spencer, the Girls, Ollie & The Nightingales and Infinity. When Memphis released ‘I Don’t Want To Lose You’ it took off in Chicago but they couldn’t get airplay anywhere else countrywide. The quartet had an album issued by Pride in ’71 but despite all their talent they couldn’t create much commercial success. After the group’s disintegration three years later, Billy busied himself behind the scenes at the ‘Butler Workshop’ writing and producing for other artists. He had become brother Jerry’s MD on the road with the Ice Man Band, fulfilling a role that others like Mayfield and Phil Upchurch had previously performed. Billy continued to write, perform and he did cut a few demos but couldn’t get a record deal until Curtom signed him in March ’76 and issued Sugar Candy Lady, his only solo album. Unfortunately the finished album was uneven and it did not chart anywhere. Once again the luckless Butler found himself in the right place at the wrong time. Within a year Curtom had switched distributors to RSO and cut back drastically on their core roster. Billy disappeared back under cover writing and performing with the Ice Man’s Band but between 1963 –’86 he made great records for the OKeh, Brunswick, Fountain, Mercury, Memphis, Uni, Pride, MGM, Curtom and Trumpet labels.

This album contains no booklet.