Jon Butcher (born May 5, 1955) is an American rock,

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the ...

songwriter A songwriter is a musician who professionally composes musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music ...

guitarist A guitarist (or a guitar player) is a person who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of guitar family instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themsel ...

and

freelance ''Freelance'' (sometimes spelled ''free-lance'' or ''free lance''), ''freelancer'', or ''freelance worker'', are terms commonly used for a person who is self-employed and not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. Freelance ...

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradit ...

producer.

Early life

Jon A. Toombs, is the elder son of Joan Butts and John A Toombs Sr. In 1967, Jon's stepfather William Butcher moved the family from

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, to Clear Air Force Base,

Clear, Alaska Clear is an unincorporated area, unincorporated community in Denali Borough, Alaska, Denali Borough, Alaska, United States. The small community is along the George Parks Highway at milepost 280 and encompasses residential homes and businesses. Its ...

. In 1969 the family moved back to Pennsylvania. Jon and his younger brother Brian completed secondary education at Conestoga High School. Jon studied Broadcast Journalism at Grahm Junior College in Boston, Massachusetts.

Influences

Many people have made comparisons between Jon Butcher and

Jimi Hendrix James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most ...

particularly in the early stages of Jon's career. These comparisons were fueled by Butcher's onstage appearance and mannerisms, patterned after Hendrix, and his choice for the band name Axis, a reference to Hendrix album '' Axis: Bold as Love''. Butcher's stated influences are

Richie Havens Richard Pierce Havens (January 21, 1941 – April 22, 2013) was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. His music encompassed elements of folk, soul (both of which he frequently covered), and rhythm and blues. He had a rhythmic guitar styl ...

John Lennon John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of ...

Phil Lynott Philip Parris Lynott (, ; 20 August 1949 – 4 January 1986) was an Irish singer, bassist, and songwriter. His most commercially successful group was Thin Lizzy, of which he was a founding member, the principal songwriter, lead vocalist and b ...

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...

, and

Taj Mahal The Taj Mahal (; ) is an Islamic ivory-white marble mausoleum on the right bank of the river Yamuna in the Indian city of Agra. It was commissioned in 1631 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan () to house the tomb of his favourite wife, ...

, and he maintains that the Hendrix comparisons are superficial, saying "... outside of the surface aspect, I don’t think there was much about me that was Jimi Hendrix-like, if you disregard the fact that I’m black and play a Stratocaster."

Johanna Wild

During the middle to late 1970s, Jon Butcher toured the Northeast U.S. with the Boston-based band Johanna Wild. Other band members were Jeff Linscott (guitar), Derek Blevins (drums) and Troy Douglas Sutler III (bass). Their song, "Suzanne" was played on local radio stations such as WBCN.

Jon Butcher Axis

Jon Butcher appeared on

MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...

and radio station WBCN in Boston, MA. He formed Jon Butcher Axis with Sandy Higgins (guitar), Chris Martin (bass) and former Johanna Wild drummer Derek Blevins and the band opened for

Kiss A kiss is the touch or pressing of one's lips against another person or an object. Cultural connotations of kissing vary widely. Depending on the culture and context, a kiss can express sentiments of love, passion, romance, sexual attraction, ...

in Fort Worth, TX) in October 1979. Soon after, Higgins left to be the front man for Balloon, while

Charlie Farren Charlie Farren is an American musician, composer and guitarist best known as the lead singer of the rock bands The Joe Perry Project and Farrenheit. Farren recently launched his 16th release, most recently on his own FMan Media label, which was ...

fronted the Mk3 lineup of The Joe Perry Project. Later Axis became a power trio and performed throughout New England.

American Tour opening for The J. Geils Band

Jon Butcher Axis was toured with

J. Geils Band ''J. The Jewish News of Northern California'', formerly known as ''Jweekly'', is a weekly print newspaper in Northern California, with its online edition updated daily. It is owned and operated by San Francisco Jewish Community Publications In ...

on their 1982 '' Freeze Frame'' American tour. Jon Butcher Axis secured an international record deal with

PolyGram Records PolyGram N.V. was a multinational entertainment company and major music record label formerly based in the Netherlands. It was founded in 1962 as the Grammophon-Philips Group by Dutch corporation Philips and German corporation Siemens, to be a ...

which led to the albums ''The Jon Butcher Axis'' and ''Stare at the Sun'', both produced by Pat Moran, who produced for

Robert Plant Robert Anthony Plant (born 20 August 1948) is an English singer and songwriter, best known as the lead singer and lyricist of the English rock band Led Zeppelin for all of its existence from 1968 until 1980, when the band broke up following th ...

, Edie Brickell and

Lou Gramm Lou Gramm (born Louis Andrew Grammatico; 2 May 1950) is an American singer-songwriter, best known for being the lead singer of the rock band Foreigner from 1977 to 1990 and 1992 to 2003 during which time the band had numerous successful albu ...

1983

1983 saw the release of their first and self-titled album, ''The Jon Butcher Axis'', featuring "Life Takes A Life". Other notable tracks included "Ocean in Motion" and "Walk Like This". This album reached No. 91 in the Billboard Pop Albums chart and Jon Butcher Axis' video "Life Takes a Life" became one of the first videos by a black artist to receive airtime on MTV. At that time, the only two black artists enjoying MTV coverage were The Jon Butcher Axis and Michael Jackson. The band's second album, ''Stare at the Sun'' (1984), reached No. 160 on the Billboard album chart. The result of these two albums' successes afforded further growing popularity for the band, which added the opportunity to tour with Rush ('Signals' tour '83), Def Leppard ('Pyromania' tour '83) and Scorpions ('Hurricane' tour '84), among others.

1985–1986

In 1985, Jon Butcher Axis signed with

Capitol Records Capitol Records, LLC (known legally as Capitol Records, Inc. until 2007) is an American record label distributed by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-based record label of not ...

and released ''Along the Axis''. The track, "The Ritual", earned multiple writers in the band a

Grammy The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pres ...

Nomination for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. On that same album, singles and videos were released for the songs "The Sounds of Your Voice" and "Stop". "The Sounds of Your Voice" (written by band member Thom Gimbel) was the only single to hit the

Billboard charts The ''Billboard'' charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs and albums in the United States and elsewhere. The results are published in ''Billboard'' magazine. ''Billboard'' biz, the online extension of the ''Billboard'' charts, pr ...

Hot 100 reaching No. 94. Quotes Jon, "The Capitol Records experience was a positive one. Jon Butcher Axis frequently toured major venues across the US during this period, opening for

INXS INXS (a phonetic play on "in excess") were an Australian rock band, formed as The Farriss Brothers in 1977 in Sydney, New South Wales. The band's founding members were bassist Garry Gary Beers, main composer and keyboardist Andrew Farriss ...

1987–1989

The following releases, ''Wishes'' (1987) and '' Pictures from the Front'' (1989) were simply recorded under the Jon Butcher name. ''Wishes'' was Butcher's most successful album. Rumored to have achieved Gold Award status, there is no evidence of this on the RIAA database. MTV videos released from both of these records included "Holy War", "Goodbye Saving Grace" and "Wishes".

Barefoot Servants

In 1991, Jon Butcher Axis ended its run. Jon Butcher himself spent most of the '90s on various multimedia projects. In 1994, he formed Barefoot Servants which released their self-titled album on

Epic Records Epic Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. The label was founded predominantly as a jazz and classical m ...

. The band included

Leland Sklar Leland Bruce Sklar (born May 28, 1947) is an American bassist and session musician. Sklar rose to prominence as a member of James Taylor's backing band, which coaleced into a group in its own right, The Section. This group of musicians so frequ ...

(bass), Ben Schultz (guitar) and Ray Brinker (drums). Their second record, ''Barefoot Servants 2'' was released b
Atom Records
in August 2005. Drummer Ray Brinker was replaced by Londoner Neal Wilkinson.

Solo endeavors

In the mid 1990s, Butcher released two solo blues albums, ''Positively the Blues'' and ''Electric Factory'', a title loosely derived from

's '' Electric Ladyland''. In 1998,

Razor & Tie Razor & Tie was an American entertainment company that consisted of a record label and a music publishing company. It was established in 1990 by Craig Balsam and Cliff Chenfeld. Based in New York City (with additional offices in Los Angeles a ...

released ''The Best of Jon Butcher – Dreamers Would Ride''. In November 2000, Butcher released a CD exclusively through his web site ''A Long Way Home''. ''A Stiff Little Breeze'' was released o
Atom Records
in 2001 and was Jon's first solo project with the independent label. This CD resurrected the Jon Butcher Axis name, and again the Hendrix reference. 2002 brought an additional Jon Butcher Axis release, ''An Ocean in Motion – Live in Boston 1984''. Jon joined the

Chris Pierce Chris Pierce is an American singer, songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist, public speaker, wine producer and officiant born and based in California. Early life Pierce is from Pasadena, California. He grew up singing in church and playing ...

band in 2008 as guitarist and released a live CD ''Live at the Hotel Cafe''. Jon is currently working on Chris' third studio release.

Video

Butcher's first DVD video release came in 2004. ''Live at the Casbah'' was filmed in December 1984 at The Casbah concert venue in

Manchester, New Hampshire Manchester is a city in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, United States. It is the most populous city in New Hampshire. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 115,644. Manchester is, along with Nashua, one of two seats of New Ha ...

. It contains several never-released songs, and additional music from his first three Jon Butcher Axis releases.

Multimedia projects

In addition to touring all over the United States and other countries to support various incarnations of both Jon Butcher Axis and Barefoot Servants, Butcher created his own production company and state of the art recording studio "Electric Factory" located in the San Fernando Hills of

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. In addition to providing music production services for recording artists, Butcher through his company "Electric Factory Music" spends a great amount of his time scoring music for television, film and computer gaming. Recent projects include music for the HBO series '' Deadwood'' and A&E's ''The Life and Times of Wild Bill Cody'', ''

The Hughleys ''The Hughleys'' is an American sitcom that aired on ABC from September 22, 1998 to April 28, 2000 and on UPN from September 11, 2000 to May 20, 2002. It starred comedian D. L. Hughley as the main character, Darryl Hughley, and Elise Neal as ...

'' ( UPN), ''

The Unit ''The Unit'' is an American action-drama television series created by David Mamet that aired on CBS from March 7, 2006, to May 10, 2009 with the total of four seasons and 69 episodes. The series focuses on a top-secret military unit modeled ...

'' ( CBS), ''

Ugly Betty ''Ugly Betty'' is an American comedy-drama television series developed by Silvio Horta, which was originally broadcast on ABC. It premiered on September 28, 2006, and ended on April 14, 2010. The series is based on Fernando Gaitán's Colombi ...

'' ( ABC), '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' (UPN), ''

My Name Is Earl ''My Name Is Earl'' is an American television sitcom created by Greg Garcia that aired on the NBC television network from September 20, 2005, to May 14, 2009, in the United States. It was produced by 20th Century Fox Television and starred Ja ...

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

, and ''Hendrix: The Movie'' (Wood Harris).

Discography

Albums

Singles

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Butcher, Jon American rock singers American rock guitarists American male guitarists African-American guitarists Musical groups from Massachusetts 1955 births Living people 20th-century American guitarists 20th-century American male musicians 20th-century African-American musicians 21st-century African-American people