If I Could Steal One Final Glance: The Mourning After Luther
See You in L.A./Jet Plane Ride
Mascara
from the album See You in L.A. (1979)
On here, Vandross sings on a West Coast-lovin’, disco-friendly megamix that has him singing about airports, hotels and champagne, even talking about lavish love-making on the beach alongside an unknown female singer. By this time, the lavish life was hardly part of Luther’s reality, but his velvety voice makes it sounds oh so believable. On the back of the album cover, his last name was spelled “Van Dross.”
Searching
Change
from the album The Glow of Love (1980)
Change was simply Chic redux. But “Searching” was much more futuristic, thanks to its wobbly Italo-disco synths, a glorious sax solo by Rudy Revisi and, of course, Luther’s lead vocals. Like “The Glow of Love,” the song was a hit on the dance floor, climbing to number 1 dance and number 23 r&b.
Hot Butterfly
Bionic Boogie
from the album Hot Butterfly (1978)
Probably Gregg Diamond‘s masterpiece outside “More More More.” This tune, used on his Bionic Boogie studio act, puts Vandross in the driving seat, singing about memories of the magical kind: “Gone are the days of instant romance/And the nights of slow goodbyes/That was a time of life when foxy was the dance/And then you got wise to all my lies.” On this tune, recorded in 1978, Diamond adds more life to the time warp disco of Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band.
I’m Gonna Miss You in the Morning
Quincy Jones
from the album Sounds…And Stuff Like That (1978)
“Here we are,” Vandross says on the opening lines of this half-ballad, half-jazz fusion track. Vandross teams up with the sultry softness of Patti Austin for the delicious ballad that immediately follows the album hit, “Stuff Like That.” Later in the song, the Frankie Beverly-like funk takes over the circulating vamp while the two flex their delicious background vocal muscles on the back of the groove.
Heaven Knows
Luther Vandross
from the album Never Let Me Go (1993)
Boasting his renowned background ensemble of Tawatha Agee, Brenda White-King, Cissy Houston, Lisa Fischer and Fonzi Thornton, “Heaven Knows” struts like a sweet uptempo Thom Bell track, but with a smooth Nineties pop polish.
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