Luther: Never Too Much is a unique film that reflects the life of Luther Vandross. It covers many important aspects of Luther’s life such as race, his class, fame, and the process of creating music. The film is highly critical of the American media and the stereotypes that prevent talented performers from shining not just Luther, but many black artists faced the same prejudices due to their looks and ethnicity.
The director of the film, Dawn Porter questions the racial biases against him of not getting recognition owing to there being a stark division in the radio industry. Black musicians developed a disadvantaged group situation in the media controlled by whites in America. The case of Vandross was consistent with the narrative developed by the NBC media. Transforming obscure artists into stars of popular music is not a form of self expression.
Vandross describes himself as one of the initial disco singers when he started his remarkable journey. Later on, he wrote and produced songs for artists like Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick, and Barbra Streisand before kick-starting his own career. Those who follow the evolution of the recording industry will hardly be in doubt of the vast array of artists with whom he collaborated.
Comprehensive in that it portrays not only his supple sound but also the supporting and muscular quality of his versatile voice. His song compositions of the decades of the 1980s and ’90s, beginning with the dazzling Never Too Much including the documentary with the same name, suggest that in the future streaming of his content is bound to increase exponentially. While his life story unfolds, however, those conversations concerning changes in Vandross’s body weight and premature ideas of his possible sexual preference seem to be gaining momentum in the media.
In some respects, the Media has learned to some extent from the boundaries set by decency in tearing apart the lives of some public figures, but both the health and the body suffer, however, it becomes evident in the film Porter that what he was able to let the people of the world see, created intense hatred towards that which the world should not view.
Max Szadek, a former aide of Luther Vandross, laments how romantic a song Vandross used to love singing called Any Love changes the moment he thinks about the bruising devotion one needs to put in to love someone. This revelation hurts one’s heart because Vandross’ fans went to see the movie expecting a happy ending and love only builds more pain as a feeling. It’s no surprise that many anticipated a film about the ever controversial songs and the man who composed them, who composed songs on his many sexual adventures, but much such material gets not nearly as much attention as such viewers were hoping for. And there are relatively a lot of those in the documentary, for some reason, there are also few expressive songs with the late Marcus Miller, Valerie Simpson, or Richard Marx.
The fact that Vandross’s fans referred to him as Dr Love might be offensive to many who understood his background because the man didn’t even have an ounce of love when he was swarmed with admirers.
Last but not least, for him to be accepted as a proper pop artist there were at least two breakthroughs he sought and his music career is a good example of him looking for perfection with a cup of self-pity. However, he pulls no punches in the film when it comes to his fierce determination to achieve stardom in the music industry where he recalls: In the mid 1960s, Vandross’ time, cross-over was not a white American, black American idea. There existed an aversion from the Black community and the white dominated pop charts towards crossing over. His movements were oftentimes seen as offensive because of what he aspired to do. It took Vandross, above all, because he had to reinvent himself to do so.
In the context, Porter talks about how much her film left out and then goes on to give sufficient quotes that guarantee that his film is both a biography and music critique and a dissertation and a call to action to explore the composer further. Sad to say, Vandross was yet another one of the countless icons of soul music that perished too early. He, alongside Otis Redding, Donny Hathaway, Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, and Teddy Pendergrass all died at a much younger age than expected. Each departed for different reasons, but their abilities were unique, authentic, and significant and this documentary makes it clear Vandross ranks among them regardless of the era when his career began, what we would refer to as the R&B peak era. He did not just expect the sexual and romantic attraction that was later followed through with New Jack Swing and other music that derived from it, he was able to create the most fundamental approaches of the classical mic scale that allowed Whitney, Mariah, Beyonce, and others to rule the charts with their entire voice range.
In the clip, he remembers how he revered Aretha Franklin and considered her havoc sing, noting the ease with which she sang. This is not an odd statement, given the strength and style that he came to be associated with. To put it differently, ‘Never Too Much’ demonstrates even better, the misleading impression that Vandross managed to create when he made the best use of his touchingly compelling gifts when he managed to downplay them. This is a lesson he learned the hard way, that what he hoped would take a mere five minutes turned out to drag on for years, not on account of any fault of his, but on account of the finer ripples of the culture of the time. For most people though, the best will be just how prophetic the title of the film by Dawn Porter, for after the first time you hear Vandross you will find it impossible to stop from being intrigued.
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