Saturday, February 20, 2016

AccuRadio Song Of The Day-Luther Vandross and Gregory Hines

Artist:Luther Vandross and Gregory Hines
Song:There's Nothing Better Than Love
Album:Greatest Hits





Of course Luther Vandross was an R & B legend and he recorded with all kinds of people. Gregory Hines was best known as a fantastic tap dancer who became a very popular film actor in the 80s. But he had a brief recording career in the late 80s. The man behind that was Luther Vandross. Vandross saw Hines perform with pianist Eubie Blake on an episode of Saturday Night Live. He decided to work with Hines. Vandross toned down some of Hines' stage trained vocal mannerisms. And Vandross also had to sing at a higher vocal range in order to sing harmony with Hines. Vandross wrote There's Nothing Better Than Love with his pianist, John "Skip" Anderson who was a member of Lenny White's Twennynine. The song appears on the 1986 album Give Me The Reason which Vandross produced with bassist Marcus Miller. That album was very successful as Stop To Love was Vandross' first top 20 pop hit. There's Nothing Better Than Love was released right after Stop To Love. It topped the R & B Singles chart and it reached #50 on the Billboard Hot 100. This led to Hines' 1988 album Gregory Hines on Epic Records. Vandross wrote and produced the album. Hines scored a top ten R & B hit with the single That Girl Wants To Dance With Me. So Hines probably could have recorded another album. But he didn't. He returned to film and stage work. Hines' album is available on CD but it's expensive. You can get There's Nothing Better Than Love on this Vandross budget comp. There's Nothing Better Than Love is pretty good for a one shot deal. That's the kind of talent Luther Vandross had. Here's the video for There's Nothing Better Than Love by Luther Vandross and Gregory Hines.

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