But as you get closer to the end of the disc and the beats suddenly slow down, Vandross’ versatility becomes all the more apparent, and the last track is the biggest eye-opener of all, a dramatically re-arranged, slowed-down seven-minute rendition of the Burt Bacharach-Hal David tune “A House Is Not a Home,” first recorded by Dionne Warwick. The soulful disco of “Sugar and Spice,” the lushly-orchestrated mellow groove of “Don’t You Know That,” and the sunny shuffle of the toe-tapping “I’ve Been Working” initially make you think that Vandross’s forte is tasteful, soft dance numbers. It’s hard, in fact, to tell what Vandross does best since he does it all so well here. – and has the material to go with it, too, and from the opening notes of the disco-tinged lite-funk of the album-opening title cut, an instant classic (and enduring smooth-jazz-radio favorite) that not only topped the R&B charts but crossed over to the Top 40, it’s obvious that this newcomer is something special indeed. and bassist Marcus Miller, Luther’s already figured out his musical identity as a recording artist – one comparable at times here to a more silky-smooth version of the Jeffrey Osborne-fronted ‘70s band L.T.D. Surrounding himself with a top-notch band boasting the likes of keyboardist Nat Adderley, Jr. Vandross hit it out of the ballpark on his very first try as a solo artist. Luther was actually quite instrumental in David Bowie’s mid-‘70s musical makeover as a soul-pop star, Luther serving as the vocal arranger on the Thin White Duke’s Young Americans album and even co-writing the track “Fascination.” Though he would sadly leave this world much too early, Luther was truly one of the finest and most consistently solid R&B album acts of the ‘80s and early ‘90s, and his many best-of packages issued to date have all suffered from some glaring omissions, so you really need to delve into his studio albums in order to gather all his biggest hits and greatest vocal performances.
(Heck, Luther’s name is chronologically second only to Marvin Gaye’s in the vast array of artists name-dropped in the Kanye West, Twista, and Jamie Foxx mood-music-tribute “Slow Jamz.”) It’s also worth noting that, before he ever became a solo star, Luther was one of the most wildly in-demand background vocalists and vocal arrangers in the record business, pop and R&B artists alike coveting his skills. He may have never fully delved into gospel territory the way Al eventually did, but he was just as capable as Green of making peoples’ toes tap – just listen to “’Til My Baby Comes Home” if you’ve never thought of Vandross as anything but a balladeer – and, like Al, he undeniably mastered the art of the sultry slow jam.
But therein lays Vandross’ genius as a craftsman: Luther was very much to the ‘80s what Al Green was to the ‘70s. Luther was not the type of R&B artist to typically make sociopolitical commentary in his music or push cultural boundaries or even do anything terribly experimental – in fact, Luther, like Lionel, really didn’t aim for anything other than to simply make listeners smile or dance or give the world a soundtrack for life’s most romantic moments. Like Lionel Richie, the late, great Luther Vandross was both a charismatic singer who alternated from tender, lovely ballads to fun, danceable lite-funk tunes with ease and a tremendously talented songwriter and producer as well, one who even such iconic artists as Aretha Franklin and Dionne Warwick recruited to their cause in the early ‘80s (Vandross even giving the Queen of Soul her first Top 40 hit in over six years with 1982’s “Jump to It.”) And, like Richie, Vandross has tended to be somewhat overlooked by critics merely because he didn’t aspire to be an artistic revolutionary figure akin to Stevie Wonder or Prince or Marvin Gaye.