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The Song He Never Got to Sing Live: How Luther Vandross’s ‘Dance with My Father’ Became His Swan Song
The Song He Never Got to Sing Live: How Luther Vandross’s “Dance with My Father” Became His Swan Song There was an empty space at the 46th Annual Grammy Awards that everyone in the Staples Center could feel. The year was 2004, and the Song of the Year — the night’s biggest songwriting honor —…
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Luther Vandross: The Private Heart Behind the Velvet Voice
Luther Vandross sang about love with more conviction than any man of his generation, and he guarded his own heart with more ferocity than any star of his era. He never married. He rarely spoke about his private life. He deflected every personal question with a smile and a change of subject. But there was…
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The Song That Won Luther His First Grammy: The Making of “Here and Now”
By 1989, Luther Vandross had sold millions of records, stacked eleven platinum albums in a row, and sung his way into the permanent architecture of American romance. He had one of the most recognizable voices on earth. There was just one thing he didn’t have: a Grammy. He had been nominated eight times going back…
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The Untold Story of Luther Vandross: From Sesame Street to the Velvet Voice of a Generation
Before he was the velvet voice of romance, before the eight Grammys and the eleven straight platinum albums, Luther Vandross was a teenager from the Alfred E. Smith housing projects teaching children how to count to twenty on television. His road to stardom ran through church basements, commercial jingles, David Bowie’s touring band, and a…