In the heart of Knoxville, visible from the interstate just after you pass the massive campus of the University of Tennessee and just before you reach the downtown center is a tall structure with a giant gold ball at the top of it. It is all the remains of the structures built for the 1982 World’s Fair that was hosted in Knoxville as the dream of a charismatic young banker named Jake Butcher.
The handsome CEO of United American Bank (UAB) had risen to statewide notoriety when he won the Democratic nomination for the 1978 Governor’s race. During that race Jake Butcher and his brother, C.H. Butcher, became major donors to political candidates and made many loans to people they hoped would be political friends. Between the brothers they owned eight regional East Tennessee Banks and their influence and loose lending habits had spread across Tennessee.
Jake and C.H. Butcher also loaned freely to the record labels, including one of Nashville’s major labels, Monument Records. At the time Fred Foster, the owner of Monument Records was heavily reliant on loans from UAB to support the launches of some of Music City’s most well-known artists.
On Valentine’s Day 1983, only months after the closing of the highly successful World’s Fair, the loose lending practices became clear fraud, and the Butcher Banks came crashing down. With the crash, businesses across the state had loans recalled by bank auditors and many businesses collapsed, many business owners were in ruins and that included Fred Foster and Monument Records.
Both Butchers and members of the families would go to jail. For the Cherry Sisters, the timing could not have been worse. Signed only months before the crash by Monument Records, the label was gone with the debut album tracks laid, publicity photos complete, album cover complete, the record never released and the Cherry Sisters found their careers in music, like others with the label, completely altered.