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Top Dance Hits
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Equally comfortable with an uptempo Dance tune or an emotional love ballad, Luther
Vandross is one of the few male solo survivors in the Dance music community.
Luther first made an impact in the clubs during the peak days of Disco and has
most recently enthralled audiences with recordings in the new millennium.
Working as both a backup singer and cowriting the song Fascination, Luther
Vandross was an integral part of David Bowie's Philly soul project, Young
Americans, in 1975. Luther continued to work as a session singer in high
demand through the rest of the 1970's. His work included lending vocals to the
Chic albums C'est Chic and Risque. Dance music audiences began to
take notice when Luther's vocals were featured on the 1980 disco chart-topping
album Glow Of Love by the group Change. Luther Vandross was the featured
vocalist on the key tracks Glow Of Love and Searching. Luther can also be heard providing vocals for chart hits by the groups Hi-Gloss and Roundtree.
Buoyed by his success on Glow Of Love, Luther left Change and signed with Epic Records for his
first solo album. Never Too Much was released in 1981 and
the lead single Never Too Much quickly landed in the Dance top 5. The album also featured a
gorgeously orchestrated Bacharach and David ballad A House Is Not a Home
which pointed toward future work on ballads and love songs. Luther's next two
albums, 1982's For Ever, For Always, For Love and 1983's Bad Boy
focused more squarely on his mastery of soulful love songs. However, at the
same time he began to exercise his skills behind the scenes as producer. The
first fruit of this endeavor was production on Aretha Franklin's triumphant
return to clubs with Jump To It.
In 1985 Luther Vandross returned to the Dance chart as a solo artist with the minor hit It's
Over Now. He also assisted with background vocals on Stevie Wonder's number one
smash Part-Time Lover and vocal arrangements for Patti Austin's album
Gettin' Away With Murder which featured the hit Honey For the Bees.
Another solo hit, Stop To Love reached the Dance chart in 1987 while his
vocal arrangements helped Ava Cherry, a fellow backup singer from the David
Bowie Young Americans project, place two singles in the Dance top 20 from her Picture Me album.
By the end of the 80's, Luther was a superstar in the Pop, R&B and Dance music
worlds. 1989's She Won't Talk To Me from the Any Love album was his
first appearance as a solo artist in the Dance top 20 since his solo debut with
Never Too Much. 1991's smash album Power Of Love featured a
towering performance of Sylvester's classic I (Who Have Nothing) with Weather Girl, and former Sylvester backup singer Martha Wash.
Luther's triumphant return to the top 5 of
the Dance chart came in 1992 with the assistance of Janet Jackson on their
duet The Best Things In Life Are Free.
Luther's commercial clout began to fade through the remainder of the 1990's.
Heaven Knows was a minor Dance hit in 1993. 1994's Songs album of
covers and the incorporation of rap on 1996's Your Secret Love failed
to excite audiences. Consequently, the success of his 2001 album simply titled
Luther Vandross was a pleasant surprise. It not only returned him to
the Pop top 40, but also to the top 5 of the Dance chart with a remix of the
ballad Can Heaven Wait. After suffering from a stroke, Luther released 2003's Dance With My Father album which topped both Pop and R&B charts. Blessed with one of the most powerful, emotive
voices in popular music and well-honed skills at vocal arrangement, Luther
remains a master craftsman in working with the human voice across Dance, Pop,
and R&B music.
