Luther Ronzoni Vandross, Jr.[4] was born on April 20, 1951, at Bellevue Hospital, in the Kips Bay neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City.[5] He was the fourth child and second son of Mary Ida Vandross and Luther Vandross, Sr.[6] His father was an upholsterer and singer,[7] and his mother was a nurse.[8] Vandross was raised in Manhattan’s Lower East Side in the NYCHA Alfred E. Smith Houses public housing development.[9] At the age of three, having his own phonograph, Vandross taught himself to play the piano by ear.[4]
Vandross’ father died of diabetes when Vandross was eight years old.[4][9][10] In 2003, Vandross wrote the song “Dance with My Father” and dedicated it to him; the title was based on his childhood memories and his mother’s recollections of the family singing and dancing in the house. His family moved to the Bronx when he was nine.[11] His sisters, Patricia “Pat” and Ann, began taking Vandross to the Apollo Theater and to a theater in Brooklyn to see Dionne Warwick and Aretha Franklin.[4] Patricia sang with the vocal group The Crests[12] and was featured on the songs “My Juanita” and “Sweetest One”.[7][13]
Vandross graduated from William Howard Taft High School in the Bronx in 1969,[12] and attended Western Michigan University for a year before dropping out to continue pursuing a career in music.[14]
Career
While in high school, Vandross founded the first Patti LaBelle fan club, of which he was president.[12][15] He also performed in a group, Shades of Jade, that once played at the Apollo Theater. During his early years in show business, he appeared several times at Apollo’s famous amateur night.[4][16] While he was a member of a theater workshop, Listen My Brother,[4] he was involved in the singles “Only Love Can Make a Better World” and “Listen to My Brother”. The group performed in front of tens of thousands at the Harlem Cultural Festival in late August 1969.[17] Directly afterward, he appeared with the group in the pilot episode and other episodes of the first season of Sesame Street during 1969–1970.[18]
The 1970s: Back-up vocalist and first groups
Vandross added backing vocals to Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway in 1972,[19] and worked on Delores Hall’s Hall-Mark album (1973). He sang with her on the song “Who’s Gonna Make It Easier for Me”, which he wrote, and he contributed another song, “In This Lonely Hour”.[citation needed] After his song “Funky Music (Is a Part of Me)” was re-written as “Fascination” with David Bowie for the latter’s Young Americans (1975) album, Vandross went on to tour with him as a back-up vocalist in September 1974.[20] Vandross wrote “Everybody Rejoice” for the 1975 Broadway musical The Wiz.[7][14][21]
Vandross also sang backing vocals for artists, including Roberta Flack,[7] Chaka Khan, Ben E. King, Bette Midler, Diana Ross, Carly Simon, Barbra Streisand, David Bowie, Cat Stevens, Gary Glitter, Ringo Starr, Sister Sledge, and Donna Summer,[22][23] and for the band’s Mandrill, Chic[21] and Todd Rundgren’s Utopia.[24]
Before his solo breakthrough, Vandross was part of a singing quintet named Luther in the late 1970s. The quintet consisted of former Shades of Jade members Anthony Hinton and Diane Sumler, as well as Theresa V. Reed, and Christine Wiltshire signed to Cotillion Records. Although the singles “It’s Good for the Soul”, “Funky Music (Is a Part of Me)”,[21] and “The Second Time Around” was relatively successful, their two albums, the self-titled Luther (1976) and This Close to You (1977), which Vandross produced, did not sell enough to make the charts. Vandross bought back the rights to those albums after Cotillion dropped the group, preventing them from being re-released.[25]
Vandross also wrote and sang commercial jingles from 1977 until the early 1980s, for companies including NBC, Mountain Dew, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Burger King, and Juicy Fruit.[7][9] He continued his successful career as a popular session singer during the late 1970s. His aforementioned song “Everybody Rejoice”, sometimes called “A Brand New Day”, was used in a Kodak commercial during the mid-1970s.[26]
In 1978, Vandross sang lead vocals for Gregg Diamond’s disco band, Bionic Boogie, on the song titled “Hot Butterfly”.[4] Also in 1978, he appeared on Quincy Jones’s Sounds…and Stuff Like That!!, most notably on the song “I’m Gonna Miss You in the Morning” along with Patti Austin.[27] Vandross also sang with the band Soirée and was the lead vocalist on the track “You Are the Sunshine of My Life”; he also contributed background vocals to the album along with Jocelyn Brown and Sharon Redd, each of whom also saw solo success. Additionally, he sang the lead vocals on the group Mascara’s LP title song “See You in L.A.” released in 1979. Vandross also appeared on the group Charme’s 1979 album Let It In.[citation needed]
