Jonathan Butler - Riverside Theatre Perth

Jonathan Butler born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa during the Apartheid era where he started singing and playing acoustic guitar as a child. Racial segregation and poverty during Apartheid has been the subject of many of his records.

Butler’s first single became the first recording by a black artist to play on the all white radio stations in the racially segregated South Africa. This earned him the highest , South African music award.

The shows will feature Jonathan in a unique setting providing intimate behind the music stories about his hit songs and also classic gems, performing all the songs you have grown to love. The audience will be treated to a special evening where Jonathan will tell stories about his music, writing experiences and memories growing up in South Africa and eventually settling in Los Angeles.

Jonathan began touring at the age of seven when he joined a traveling stage show, and was later signed up to perform on a string of hit recordings, turning him into a local teen idol. In 1978 he found the inspiration and encouragement to begin expressing himself as a composer and songwriter when he joined Cape Town's best known jazz/rock outfit, Pacific Express. Two albums were recorded with the Express personnel, and some Pacific Express songs were later released on the 1988 7th Avenue album. All three releases were issued by Mountain Records.

Butler was signed to Jive Records in 1977, and in the early 1980s he moved to the United Kingdom where he remained for seventeen years. His international breakthrough came in 1987 with his Grammy nominated hit single, "Lies" and his cover version of the Staple Singers song "If You're Ready (Come Go with Me)", which he performed with Ruby Turner. Butler maintained a loyal following in the 1980s and 1990s, in South Africa, the United States and Europe.

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