Listen to an exerpt from "Goodbye Saving Grace"

JON BUTCHER: WISHES
To say that making Jon Butcher records was about the most musical trip I have taken would be accurate. Jon played guitar like an angel. My old pal, Jeff Beck met Jon at a dinner at our home where Eddie Van Halen, Jeff and Jon jammed together in the spring of 1987. To hear a guitar saint like Jeff say "this guy is a f#@*!&g genius was pretty monumental! Jeff was in town to film his "Ambitious" video and after hearing Jon play, thought he would endorse him by giving Jon a role in his video. Check it out if you can. It rocks! After a great dinner that Suzanne crafted, these rock and roll animals actually had an "unplugged" experience in our den which made me stop trying to be a guitarist for good. Boy, I felt like a beginner, and I've been playing guitar since I was 16!

Jon Butcher wrote, played and sang emotionally, passionately and with such style that all the rock industry trades called him " the most brilliant, overlooked artist of 1987." Each one of his lead tracks from the three albums I made with him went into the top 5 on the national rock airplay charts. Each such track was in the top 3 most requested tracks. And each album that these highly musical, atmospheric tracks came from stalled at 250,000 units in domestic sales. Why ? Because each time we released a single, whether it was "Stop" from the ALONG THE AXIS LP; "Goodbye Saving Grace," "Wishes"and "Holy War" from the WISHES album; or "Send Me Somebody" from the PICTURES FROM THE FRONT Album (which my friend Glen Ballard co-produced with us),Capitol Records, the distributing label, changed Presidents !!!

With each presidential change, there was a power shift in the marketing and promotion departments. Jon was such a unique and special artist that he didn’t quite fit the "by the numbers" mold. Thus, you had to be a purist and lover of music to really get behind his art. We all know that not every record company executive is just that. . . At any rate, I loved making records with him,and to this day, I can listen to any of our three albums and feel that they stand up on all levels. As a matter of fact, the industry and his adoring public agreed on a consistent basis. We even shared a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Instrumental on the track "Churinga" from the WISHES album.

There is one additional highlight in my Jon Butcher experience that I would like to share. When Suzanne and I were getting married, in June of 1985, Jon was living in our home in Benedict Canyon, California. He had very little money, having just moved to L.A. from his hometown of Boston. Rather than give us a normal, material wedding gift, he crafted a beautiful poem, set it to music and gave it to us as our wedding present. It was called "Devoted To You". He performed it live at the wedding, which we held at our home. My bride and I were so touched by the song’s sentiment that we had the lyric printed inside of our wedding invitation. It went like this:

Devoted To You
Words and Music By Jon Butcher

Verse

Pre-Chorus #1

Chorus

Verse

Pre-Chorus #2

Repeat Chorus (2 Times)

Tag

Copyright 1985
Used by permission.