Rose in the news....have you read...?

 December 1998 issue   

Hired Guns
Rosemary Butler knew she wanted to sing from age 12. She fell in love with The Beatles, honed her harmonizing skills by singing along with records, and when her high school classmates were dancing at the prom, she and her all-girl band, The Lady Birds, were opening for The Rolling Stones. "That's when I knew my life was gonna be different!" she says with a laugh. She subsequently opened for Bob Seeger, The Who and Ted Nugent, while work in another band, Birtha, led to singing backup for a slew of rock and pop artists-Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, Bruce Springsteen, Joe Cocker. Hers was the voice that framed Jackson Browne's on his classic "Running On Empty." Even though she was "just" the backup singer, her voice did as much to define the sound of '70s and '80s California rock as the stars she intuitively supported. She's a consummate but pragmatic pro who's continually diversified and thus never stopped working. She insists you make your own luck: "It's a highly paid skill that you learn-like being a barber or a shoemaker. The star could make one album and not have another hit, and the backup singer can be singing for the rest of their life."   (Our thanks to Gig magazine for letting us reprint this...for reprints   purchase the December 1998 issue by contacting Gig magazine for back issues.)

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