Luther Vandross - Songs Album

As we know Luther was one of the greatest vocalists that ever lived. I first had the pleasure of meeting and working with him back in 1983 when my brother James was recording his first album. Luther and I were both part of the background singers for James record.

In January 1994 we meet again. I had become one of the the vocal contractors for Walter Afanasieff who was producing Mariah Carey, Barbara Streisand, Michael Bolton, Kenny G, and a host of others. When he was called to produce the Luther Vandross record the idea was to take a great vocalist and re-do some great "Songs", thus the concept behind the record.

I was called in to contract about 6 singers including myself for the backgrounds. I called my buddies, like Phil Perry, Jim Gilstrap, Johnny Britt, Lynn Davis, and Alex Brown. We got to sing on 6 songs from the record and we were scheduled to finish the whole project, but then January 17, 1994, Los Angeles had the Northridge Earthquake and it was pretty devastating for the area. It was a 6.1 earthquake and multiple after shocks for many weeks to come. How did this affect us finishing the record? Because of the instability of the earthquake recording sessions that were scheduled got canceled. During this time period parts of different freeways needed reconstruction and it made getting around town pretty hard.

After a couple of weeks of the 'not knowing' how things would turn out, Walter decided to finish the record in New York and Fonzi Thornton was called in to contract singers from the New York area to help finish the record.

Even though we were having a blast recording this record the earthquake was a factor in us not finishing the record. This album, as other Luther albums went on to do quite well.

That was the last time that I got to work with Luther. On April 16, 2003 Luther suffered a stroke at his home in Manhattan, New York. This was during the time when he had just finished the final vocals for the album Dance With My Father.


A great vocalist that we miss dearly. His recordings will live on and I'm glad that I had the pleasure of working with him on a few occasions but especially being a part of the "Songs" project, despite the Northridge Earthquake.

Until Next Time - Phillip