Luther Vandross: How Many Times Can We Say Goodbye?
by Michael A. Gonzales
Growing up in New York City, the late Luther Vandross—who died five years ago today—spent the first thirteen years of his life within the concrete confines of the infamous Lower East Side. Raised a few blocks away from the murky waters of the East River, not far from where smelly men used to sell fish on South Street, he lived in Smith Houses projects.
He was enraptured by the voices of LaBelle and Diana Ross, the three-minute symphonies that drifted from sound factories like the Brill Building and Motown, the lyricism of Smokey Robinson and Hal David. All these sounds inspired Vandross to walk the pop path.
“My friends and I would sit in our apartments listening to music and daydreaming about the singers we loved,” Vandross admitted during our first meeting in the fall of 1996. Sitting in a swank hotel suite a few months before the release of Your Secret Love, his tenth and last studio album for Epic Records, we were about 60 blocks and a million miles away from Vandross’s old ‘hood.
“We were obsessed. ‘I wonder what it’s like backstage at an Aretha Franklin concert?’ we would say. Or, ‘You know Diana Ross and Aretha Franklin both live in Detroit—I wonder if they go to lunch together, then go get their nails done?’ That was the kind of stuff going through our minds.”
Yet, unlike most young music fans who eventually move on to lead mediocre lives, Luther was determined to become a part of his own pop daydream. Accordingly, after being turned-out by Dionne Warwick conjuring her chilly mojo from the stage of Brooklyn’s famous Fox Theater, Vandross resolved that he too wanted to be a star.
Read the Full Essay at SoulSummer.com
by Michael A. Gonzales
Growing up in New York City, the late Luther Vandross—who died five years ago today—spent the first thirteen years of his life within the concrete confines of the infamous Lower East Side. Raised a few blocks away from the murky waters of the East River, not far from where smelly men used to sell fish on South Street, he lived in Smith Houses projects.
He was enraptured by the voices of LaBelle and Diana Ross, the three-minute symphonies that drifted from sound factories like the Brill Building and Motown, the lyricism of Smokey Robinson and Hal David. All these sounds inspired Vandross to walk the pop path.
“My friends and I would sit in our apartments listening to music and daydreaming about the singers we loved,” Vandross admitted during our first meeting in the fall of 1996. Sitting in a swank hotel suite a few months before the release of Your Secret Love, his tenth and last studio album for Epic Records, we were about 60 blocks and a million miles away from Vandross’s old ‘hood.
“We were obsessed. ‘I wonder what it’s like backstage at an Aretha Franklin concert?’ we would say. Or, ‘You know Diana Ross and Aretha Franklin both live in Detroit—I wonder if they go to lunch together, then go get their nails done?’ That was the kind of stuff going through our minds.”
Yet, unlike most young music fans who eventually move on to lead mediocre lives, Luther was determined to become a part of his own pop daydream. Accordingly, after being turned-out by Dionne Warwick conjuring her chilly mojo from the stage of Brooklyn’s famous Fox Theater, Vandross resolved that he too wanted to be a star.
Read the Full Essay at SoulSummer.com
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