Jonathan Butler Looks At 'Story Of Life'

10/04/1999 4:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Craig Rosen

(10/4/99, 1 a.m. PDT) - On his new album, Story Of Life, guitarist/ vocalist Jonathan Butler candidly examines the conflicting emotions he experienced over leaving his homeland of South Africa, as well as the fortitude that helped him overcome obstacles encountered throughout his life.

Butler says that all of his life he'd been labeled by others, and the labels gave him a sense of alienation. "In South Africa, I was called a colored. Growing up as a colored with blacks and whites, it didn't seem to make sense," he says. "Even within the colored community there was a culture, real strong Brazilian--Carnival and Malaysian choirs and stuff like that--but it wasn't where I belonged. I couldn't ever identify with this label 'colored.' To the African, I was an African. To the white guy I was black. So, who are you? So, as a young man and as a person, I've been experiencing things and trying to make my own reality and my own identity."

Butler adds that he now seeks to be a unifying force to his audience. "Everything I try to do is to show you and the audience your color doesn't matter to me," he says. "Our experiences are the same. The fact that somebody's dying in Berlin, and somebody's dying in Kosovo, somebody's dying in South Africa--we are part of the human race. We [are] supposed to be feeling that same pain."

Butler is currently on tour in support of Story Of Life. On Friday (Oct. 8), he'll kick off a three-day engagement at Seattle's Jazz Alley. You can catch Butler on tour on the following dates:

10/8, 10 - Seattle, Jazz Alley
10/15 - New York, Beacon Theater (with Boney James)
10/16 - Avalon, Calif., Catalina Jazz Festival
10/17 - Temecula, Calif., Thornton Winery
10/23 - Little Rock, Ark., Convention Center
10/24 - Memphis, Tenn., New Daisy Theater

-- Lucy Tauss, New York

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