Vandross, Luther

Vandross, Luther, African-American session singer turned R&B star turned pop star; b. N.Y., April 20, 1951. One of the most popular and successful singers of the last quarter of the 20th century, Luther Vandross manages to neatly balance art and commerce. On the commerce side, nearly every album Vandross has made has gone at least platinum. On the art side, Vandross possesses one of the finest vocal instruments to grace a pop record, with a range that goes from a growling baritone to a yearning tenor, with raw, affecting emotion in it.

Raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, his family was immersed in both sacred and secular music. His older sister performed with the doo-wop group the Crests. He began to learn piano before he started kindergarten and by his early 20s had worked with musical theater workshops at the Apollo Theater and had a song, “Everybody Rejoice (A Brand New Day)” in the Broadway musical The Wiz. He also did sessions, mostly jingles for clients ranging from Burger King to the Army, until his friend Carlos Alomar landed in David Bowie’s band and introduced Vandross to Bowie as he went in to record Young Americans. Vandross wound up both arranging and singing the background vocals on the album and tour, contributing the song “Fascination.”

Suddenly his career took off and he became a first-call backing vocalist, working with artists ranging from Ringo Starr to Chic (he was featured on the one-time best-selling single of all time, “Dance, Dance, Dance”). His success with the studio dance group Change on the hit “Glow of Love” led to two solo records that failed to establish him as a star in his own right, partially because he had limited input into the production. He went back to the studios and to backing artists in concert. While he was working with Roberta Flack, she fired him so he could give a solo career another shot. He recorded his own song, “Never Enough,” and a cover of “A House Is Not a Home.” On the basis of these songs, he got a contract with Epic that gave him creative control. The album, with those demos unchanged except for some added strings, went to #19 pop and platinum, topping the R&B charts, as did the title track “Never Too Much,” although it only hit #33 pop.

This would be a recurring theme in Vandross’s career throughout the 1980s, when he became massively popular in R&B but a marginally popular pop artist. Top Ten R&B hits like “Bad Boy/Having a Party,” “ITI Let You Slide,” “Superstar/Until You Come Back to Me (That’s What I’m Going to Do),” “It’s Over Now,” “Give Me the Reason,” “I Really Didn’t Mean It,” “For Your Love,” and even R&B chart toppers like “Any Love” and his duet with Gregory Hines “There’s Nothing Better than Love” all failed to make the pop chart during the 1980s.

During his first decade as a solo artist, only the R&B chart topper “Stop to Love” the R&B #3 “She Won’t Talk to Me,” and the R&B #4 “Til My Baby Comes Home” made any real impression on the pop charts, hitting #15 in 1986, #30 in 1989, and #29 in 1985, respectively. His only other pop hit, a duet with Dionne Warwick on “How Many Times Can We Say Goodbye,” rose to #27 in 1983. However, during this same period, he had seven platinum albums, including two that went double platinum. Only 1988^/s Any Love,however, broke the pop album Top Ten, hitting #9. Most of his albums followed a similar formula: a couple of upbeat numbers, a few ballads, at least one of which teeters on the brink of being overwrought, and one well-chosen, exquisitely performed cover.

In addition to producing his own records, he became a successful producer of other artists. His production of Aretha Franklin’s Jump to Ittook both the album and the title track to the top of the R&B charts and gave her her first Top 40 pop hit in six years, starting her revival. He also worked with Teddy Pendergrass and Whitney Houston, among many others.

His fortunes in the pop market started to change at the turn of the decade with the release of his first greatest hits collection, The Best of Love. The album included one new track, “Here and Now.” Although it didn’t give him the chart topper he’d hoped for, it hit #6 pop, spent two weeks on top of the R&B charts, and went gold. The track won him a Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Male.

He rode this momentum with another well-crafted album of new material, Power of Love. The single “Power of Love/Love Power” featured Darlene Love and Cissy Houston, and although it topped the R&B charts yet again, it also hit a respectable #4 pop. He followed this with the #9 “Don’t Want to Be a Fool,” which again made it to #4 R&B. “The Rush” hit #6 R&B, but didn’t cross over pop. The album hit #7 and went double platinum.

He once again topped the R&B charts dueting with Janet Jackson on “The Best Things in Life Are Free” from the 1992 movie Mo’ Money. The tune hit #10 pop. It took a year before his own album came out. While Never Let Me Gowent platinum and charted at #6 pop, once again he was playing to the R&B audience. “Sometimes It’s Only Love” and the title track didn’t cross over pop, going to #9 and #31 R&B. The #10 R&B tune “Little Miracles (Happen Every Day)” and the #24 R&B hit “Heaven Knows” didn’t break the pop Top 40, peaking at #62 and #94, respectively. Vandross seemed to have lost the ground he created.

After taking a stab at the movies, playing a hitman in Robert Townsend’s movie Meteor Man,Vandross regained his pop momentum, expanding one element of nearly every album—the covers—to the whole thing. Songsfeatured material ranging from McFadden and Whitehead’s disco anthem “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now” to show tunes like “The Impossible Dream.” He had a gold duet with rising star Mariah Carey on the Diana Ross/Lionel Richie chart topper “Endless Love.” They took it to #2 on the pop charts and gold status. The album hit #5 and platinum.

After a successful holiday album, Vandross put out Your Secret Love. In addition to the usual formula, he invited Spinderella from Salt-N-Pepa to add some hip-hop to one of the tracks. A year later, he left Epic after nearly two decades, signing with Virgin for I Know. This album expanded his palette, with two hip-hop tracks with a Salt-N-Pepa sound-alike named Precise on one end of the spectrum and “I’m Only Human,” a duet with jazz star Cassandra Wilson featuring keyboard by pop jazz icon Bob James. It showed Vandross as a performer who continues to evolve but ever so slowly. This might account, along with his mighty talent, for his longevity.

Discography

Never Too Much (1981); Forever, for Always, for Love (1982); Busy Body (1983); The Night I Fell in Love (1985); Give Me the Reason (1986); Any Love (1988); Power of Love (1991); Never Let Me Go (1993); Songs (1994); This Is Christmas (1995); Your Secret Love (1996); / Know (1998).

—Brock Helander