Luther Vandross

Few voices in American soul have combined such warmth with such precision as Luther Vandross, whose velvet-smooth phrasing made him a sought-after presence in studios as well as on stage. Born in Manhattan in 1951 and raised in the Alfred E. Smith Houses on the Lower East Side, he taught himself piano by ear as a toddler. He also wrote and produced, and his eleven consecutive platinum albums have sold over 40 million records worldwide.

He began in the late 1960s with Listen My Brother, an Apollo workshop group that released one single, 'Only Love Can Make a Better World', and played the Harlem Cultural Festival in 1969. From 1972 he sang backing vocals for Roberta Flack, Donny Hathaway and David Bowie, among others. His debut solo album, Never Too Much, followed on Epic in 1981, and he later won eight Grammy Awards, including Song of the Year for 'Dance with My Father' in 2004. In 2024 Kendrick Lamar and SZA's chart-topping 'Luther' sampled his version of 'If This World Were Mine', and the documentary Luther: Never Too Much followed that January.