Songoftheday 8/4/15 - We took a vow to be ever true I lived up to mine, tell me did you...

"Lies" - Jonathan Butler
from the album Jonathan Butler (1987)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #27 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 5

Today's SOTD comes from the R&B/jazz/gospel singer/guitarist Jonathan Butler, who was born in Cape Town, South Africa. He was one of the first black artists to get mainstream exposure and success in that land of apartheid, and his cover of the soul classic "Please Stay" climbed to #2 on that country's singles chart in 1975 when he was still in the middle of his teenage years. Moving to England, Butler teamed up with British soul singer Ruby Turner for another cover track, "If You're Ready (Come Go With Me)", which made the top-30 on the UK singles chart and was a minor R&B hit in America at #58 in the fall of 1986. Before that, his instrumental "Baby Please Don't Take It" from his American debut Introducing Jonathan Butler, shimmied to #25 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart. A year later, with his self-titled second effort, Butler added more vocals and lite-dance radio-friendly cuts like the first single "Lies", which gave him his first and biggest U.S. success...

"Lies" became Butler's first and so far last top-40 pop hit in August of 1987. The song did even better on R&B stations, peaking at #5 on Billboard's "Black Singles" chart, as well as #16 on their Adult Contemporary list. Over the pond in England the record topped out at #18.

While he wasn't able to repeat this success at mainstream pop radio in the States, his lite-jazz offerings scored Jonathan four more top-10 R&B hits in the last half of the decade, with the title track from his next track, "More Than Friends", reaching #4, and it's followup, "Sarah, Sarah", his most recent top-10 soul hit. He continued to have more modest success in the 90s, with "Lost To Love" his last R&B hit at #68 in 1998. Since then he's concentrated more on gospel and jazz music, with a string of successful albums leading until today.

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Here's Butler performing live on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson promoting the album in 1987...

...and again live at a show in Uganda in 2010...

Up tomorrow: A trio of fruity British babes are dishing the dirt.