Out in the waiting room, there’s a guy who’s been here since 8:30. It’s noon now and the commissioner still hasn’t arrived. Another fellow has been waiting since 10. They both want to discuss businesses that they’re planning to open.
The other two men give up and leave.
Butler seems very comfortable here in his commissioner’s office. He leans back in his swivel chair with his hands behind his head and laughs a lot. Lying around his desk you can find books of philosophy. On the walls are the framed gold records.
AL: Let’s talk a little bit about how you got started in the music business. My understanding is you started out in a church choir.
JB: Actually it kind of was the first song I had written. Actually it wasn’t even really a song. It was really a poem, which is why it doesn’t repeat any lines. There is no hook to speak of. It goes from beginning to end like a poem does. And because of that, I think that’s why Rolling Stone magazine thought it was unique enough to be called the, quote unquote, beginning of soul music.
AL: Now, how did the Traveling Soul Spiritualist Singers become the Impressions?
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JB: More than a lot. [He giggles.] It gave me a life-style. Up until then, there was no life-style. Actually, it did and it didn’t. At that time we weren’t poor; we were broke. We didn’t have any money, but we didn’t need anything. We had clothes and food and we had laughs and on occasion we went to the movies. We had a TV and a record player and most of the things that folks have. I was living with my mother. My dad had died my first year in high school. And in 1957, my mother moved into Cabrini-Green, about the same time I was graduating from high school, and then in 1958 we recorded “For Your Precious Love.” So, I went right from high school into the workplace as a performing artist.
