Luther Vandross: 1951-2005
 In R&B music, Luther Vandross ranked with Prince, Stevie Wonder, and Michael Jackson as one of the most successful singer/songwriters and producers of the '80s. Amazingly, unlike those peers, for the most part he did not cross over to widespread pop appeal, a situation that finally began to change at the end of the '80s. Vandross had an elastic tenor that made him a natural for backup singing and commercial work in the early '70s, when he became a top session vocalist. In the second half of the '70s, he recorded under a variety of guises, cutting two albums for Cotillion under the name "Luther," recording with the session groups Roundtree and Change, and singing on hits by Chic. In 1981, Vandross signed with Epic and released his debut album, Never Too Much, which topped the R&B charts and sold two million copies. The title track was also an R&B number one hit single and reached the pop Top 40. Vandross went on to produce albums for Aretha Franklin and other female singers, while maintaining his own career through the '80s. His albums Forever, For Always, For Love (1982), Busy Body (1983), The Night I Fell in Love (1985), Give Me the Reason (1986), and Any Love (1988) were all million-sellers that spawned major R&B hits, but Vandross' pop success was spotty until 1989, when Epic released The Best of Luther Vandross...The Best of Love, a greatest-hits album containing the new track "Here and Now," which became Vandross' first Top Ten pop hit. That proved his breakthrough, and Vandross' next album, Power of Love (1991), another million-seller, featured two pop hits, "Power of Love/Love Power" and "Don't Want to Be a Fool."

Vandross returned to the pop Top Ten in 1992 with "The Best Things in Life Are Free" from the movie Mo' Money, a duet with Janet Jackson. His next album, Never Let Me Go (1993), marked a slight falloff in sales, but Songs (1994), an all-covers album, restored his commercial standing, featuring a gold-selling pop Top Ten remake of "Endless Love," a duet with Mariah Carey. This Is Christmas (1996) and Your Secret Love (1997) were million-sellers. One Night With You: The Best of Love, Vol. 2 (1997) compiled Vandross' hits from 1991 to 1996. He returned in 1998 with I Know. Smooth Love followed two years later and a self-titled release on J Records appeared in spring 2001. In 2003 he scored his first No.1 album on The Billboard 200 with the Grammy award winning Dance With My Father. On July 1, 2005, Luther Vandross died. He was 54.

Sound Files (MP3)
*Lovely Day Part.2 (w/Busta Rhymes) - from the album Dance With My Father
Never Too Much - from the album Never Too Much


NB: MP3s with a * next to it indicates that it is located on another server. Reason being is because these MP3s exceed 5 MB and Geocities (the web host for this site) will not accept MP3s over 5 MB. These MP3s are located under the server Angelfire. So in order to download MP3s that are under this server, you must left click once on the name of the MP3 that you want to download, which will take you onto a different page (because it is on a different server, and Geocities do not allow direct links to files located on other servers) and then either left click (if you want to download the MP3 but do not want to save it) or right click, then "Save Target As..." (if you want to the save the MP3) on the name of the MP3 that you want to listen to. Easy as...


DISCOGRAPHY

RETURN TO MAIN MENU