"Jump to It" was gold from the moment they stepped into the recording studio.Ĭhapter Two: Dionne Warwick. That's all we did, picked keys that were conducive for a mid-rangey type approach." He also wrote four new songs, arranged all the others, and wrapped Aretha in a warm production that revived her confidence and skills. All I wanted to do was make everyone understand that in addition to hitting high Cs, Aretha has tremendous value when she's singing in neutral, so to speak.
But she's been unchallenged for years, "which was usually the fault of the material or the approach. "Aretha's among the most brilliant singers the planet has to offer," Vandross, a big bear of a man, gushes. It's paid off.Īt one time he described himself as an "Arethacologist," and it was Franklin he produced first. Vandross has taken his fandom and turned it around in the process he's reinvented, recreated, redefined the classic soul sound of the '60s, dressing it up in '80s technology, but insisting on the return of romance, emotion and joy that marked that almost innocent era. He's won the first three National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences awards for male backup vocalist his jingle singing is ubiquitous and instantly recognizable. His own already-gold follow-up, "Forever, For Always, For Love," chock-full of exuberant and sensual declamations of love and desire, has just raced into the chart position recently vacated by Franklin. 1 on the black charts, a position she had not held for many years. His second effort was Aretha Franklin's "Jump to It" it returned a fired-up Queen of Soul to No. His first outside album production was Cheryl Lynn's "Instant Love," which yielded a No.
Here's what Luther Vandross has done in music, so far: His self-produced 1981 debut, "Never Too Much," oozed with an invigorating update of the classic emotional singing of '60s soul it went platinum and established Vandross as the most distinctive new singer in a decade. I decided at that point that I wanted to do something in music." 'Anyone Who Has a Heart' was a masterpiece. She came on stage and just killed me the music was more serious, the song value was more serious. It was at the Brooklyn Fox Theatre in 1963 he'd actually gone to see the Shirelles. The person single-handedly responsible for me making a decision to pursue artistic things was Dionne Warwick. He has little difficulty pinpointing "who lit my musical fire, who aroused my musical libido. Now 31, he's spent 20 years listening, and the last eight moving out of the shadows. Vandross didn't care much for sports or street activities, outside of corner harmonies a year in college was spent spinning Franklin albums in the student lounge - not a higher learning, perhaps, but a deeper one.
Smith housing project on the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge, he listened carefully, intensely to an older sister who sang backup for the Crests ("16 Candles"), to such black divas as Dionne Warwick, Aretha Franklin and Diana Ross. LUTHER VANDROSS is singin' on top of the world nowadays, master of a strinĪs a chubby teen-ager growing up in the Alfred E.