Luther vandross songs also sung by dionne warwick
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Eventually he pled out to reckless driving, and settled a wrongful death suit brought by the Salvemini family out of court. Later that year Vandross was charged with vehicular manslaughter. There was an accident in which Vandross and Jimmy Salvemini were badly injured, and Larry Salvemini was killed. His protege Jimmy Salvemini was sitting in the backseat, and Salvemini’s father in the passenger seat. In early 1986 Vandross was driving his Mercedes Benz convertible in the Hollywood Hills. He even sued a British tabloid for libel in 1985 when the magazine claimed that his weight loss was the result of AIDS. Each time he would appear on television he seemed to have lost a lot of weight, or gained it back again. He also found success working with Diana Ross during this time period.Īnyone who was around at the time will vividly remember not only Vandross’ great voice, but also his drastic weight fluctuations. Warwick scored a hit with the title track. In 1983 he had the opportunity to work with her, producing, writing, and singing on her album How Many Times Can We Say Goodbye. Dionne Warwick had been a major influence for Vandross since he saw her at the Apollo as a child. He kept doing session work, and produced two albums for Aretha Franklin, her big comeback Jump To It, and the less successful Get It Right. The hits kept coming in the ’80s, but Vandross’ success was somewhat limited to the R&B charts.
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The album also featured an unforgettable extended version of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s classic “A House is Not a Home.” It was the beginning of long collaborations with bassist Marcus Miller, who played on the album, and Nat Adderley, Jr., who arranged it. The title track, written by Vandross, went to #1 on the R&B chart. Although he sang on a number of hit records in the disco era, his breakthrough as a featured vocalist didn’t come until 1980 when a studio group called Change had hits with “The Glow of Love,” and “Searching.” Vandross sang lead on both.īased on that success, Epic Records signed Vandross to a recording deal, and he finally released his first solo album, Never Too Much, in 1981. Meanwhile, Vandross continued his career as an in-demand session vocalist, and he also found success writing and recording jingles. The group had some success with the singles “It’s Good For the Soul,” “Funky Music (Is a Part of Me),” and “The Second Time Around,” but the two albums that the group released failed to chart, and Cotillion dropped them. During this time he also co-wrote the song “Fascination” for David Bowie’s Young Americans album.īy the late ’70s Vandross was singing with a group that bore his name, Luther, and they signed a deal with Cotillion Records.
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King, Bette Midler, Diana Ross, Carly Simon, and Donna Summer, as well as for Todd Rundgren’s Utopia, and Chic. He sang with an astonishing group of artists including Roberta Flack, Barbra Streisand, Chaka Khan, Ben E. It wasn’t long before Vandross began to find work as a backing vocalist in New York City. He tried college, attending Western Michigan University for a year, but music was meant to be his life, and he dropped out. He was part of a workshop group called Listen My Brother, which released two singles, and he appeared on two early episodes of Sesame Street in 1969. Unfortunately for her, Pat had left the group by the time the Crests recorded their hit. His sister Pat had been a member of the Crests, who had a huge hit with “16 Candles” in 1959. He wasn’t the first singer of note in the family though. In fact Vandross himself sang at the Apollo when he was in high school, as a member of a group called Shades of Jade. Vandross was fortunate to have two older sisters who started to take him to shows at the legendary Apollo Theater, where he saw artists like Dionne Warwick and Aretha Franklin. He was eight years-old when his father died of complications from diabetes, and 13 when his family moved to the Bronx. At three years old he had already taught himself to play the piano by ear. Vandross was born in New York City in 1951 and raised on the Lower East Side. His loss, and his influence, continue to be felt to this day. When he died nine years ago the world suddenly got a little less musical. I come here today to praise Luther Ronzoni Vandross, who, despite the somewhat incongruous middle name, was one of the greatest singers of any kind of music that this world has ever known.