For Your Precious Love - Jerry Butler and the Impressions
- unclestylus
- Nov 5
- 2 min read
There are many examples of groups suddenly suddenly discovering that one of their number is now being credited as the leader with the rest consigned to the nominal role of backing singers or band: Diana Ross and the Supremes, Eric Burden and the Animals, Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel and so on. And there are often many different reasons for this, not always the ones that Ross, Burden, Harley and co give. While groups such as Tommy James and the Shondells and Martha and the Vandellas (plus Ian Drury and the..., Florence and the....etc) intentionally started out with the two-name format, the Impressions were stunned when their first single came out of the delivery box labelled "For Your Precious Love - Jerry Butler and the Impressions", with the words "Jerry Butler" in big bold print while "the Impressions" was in a much smaller case. Butler himself was as surprised as anyone: the record company, Vee-Jay, had done it without their knowledge. Label boss, Ewart Abner, offered the most frequently touted reason: that venues and other media including tv and radio, paid more performance money for groups with an individual star name, and that it was common practice to do this but then split the income equally between all the group's members. In this case it proved a false benefit as the Impressions never recovered, the record label's unilateral act planting a seed of mistrust and resentment between Butler and three of the others, who didn't believe his protests of non-complicity in the affair. Bad feelings only festered further as the song hit number 11 on the US charts, and Butler's name took top billing in subsequent tour posters and on-stage announcements. Eventually, not being able to stand the bitter atmosphere within the group any longer, Butler left to go solo.
So it's deeply ironic that one of the greatest ever songs celebrating love and spiritual harmony between two people should have caused so much dissonance.
Jerry Butler's vocal is as sweet and sincere as your mother was when she first held you to her breast. The backing singing by the other Impressions, Curtis Mayfield, Arthur and Richard Brooks and Sam Godden, is so pure they sound like a choir of angels at the original nativity. Butler, who sadly died on 20th February last, deploys all of his skill and experience as a gospel singer to make "For Your Precious" as beautiful, as simple and as hopeful a record as ever there was.