He says he overheard Vandross and Lasley speaking on the phone. Kravitz used to live with songwriter David Lasley, who was also his mentor. Luther Vandross was lonely and tried to hide his sexual orientation, according to Lenny Kravitz Furthermore, his mother was friends with singer Sarah Vaughan, whom he referred to as “Auntie Sarah.” His godmothers were the late Diahann Carroll and Cicely Tyson. In his book, Let Love Rule, Kravitz says he remembers Duke Ellington playing “Happy Birthday” for him when he turned 6 years old. Since Kravitz was the son of Roxie Roker, the star of CBS sitcom The Jeffersons, and Syd Kravitz, an entertainment executive, he often spent time around celebrities. The singer wanted nothing more than to live his life, but he held on to this secret until his death. Kravitz says Vandross was a lonely man and he tried to hide his sexual orientation from the public. And he loved them too”.Luther Vandross seemed to have it all, but according to Lenny Kravitz, the late singer struggled behind the scenes. Remember one thing, most of all: that his songs were trying to tell people to bring love back into their lives. In a 2006 interview she gave people magazine, his mother said this about her son’s legacy: “He touched so many people. He was survived by his mother Mary Ida, who passed away in 2008.
He died “following complications from a stroke he suffered in 2003”. Like all his siblings, he suffered from diabetes for much of his life.
The youngest of 4 children, Luther was sadly until his death, his mother’s only living child. He was a highly talented artist who lived for his music. That he received a total of 31 Grammy Award nominations says it all really. He is also said to have “achieved crossover status with eight Billboard Top 10 albums, including reaching #1 with 2003’s Dance With My Father”. From then on, he never stopped being successful and in demand.ĭuring his time as a solo artist, he is said to have “dominated the American R&B music charts like no other artist before or since”, and “in that span, he released eight #1 R&B albums, seven #1 R&B singles and another five Top 20 R&B singles”. He slowly worked his way up to the top by first lending his beautiful voice as a backing singer for the likes of Diana Ross, David Bowie and Barbra Streisand, to name but these few.Īlthough he started in the music business in 1969, his breakthrough as a solo artist came in 1981 with the success of his song “Never Too Much”, which not only reached number one on the R&B charts but also won him a nomination at the 1982 Grammys for ‘Best R&B Vocal Performance’. Like many artists of his generation, his fame was earned the hard way. But of course great talents never really leave us and like many others whose deaths we still mourn, he will for ever be in our hearts.īy the time of his death, Luther Vandross had sold more than 40 million records and was the recipient of 8 Grammy Awards, 4 of which were won in 2004 alone. His untimely death, aged just 54, on July 1, 2005, was a shock to say the least. His cover of “Endless Love” with Mariah Carey, has to be one of the best versions of this song ever sung. Luther Vandross (1951 – 2005), who was childless, remains one of my all-time favourite artists.
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