Vandross always devotes one or two songs on each album as a tribute to older soul singers he especially admires. The first single is " 'Till My Baby Comes Home," a vow of faithfulness that boasts Miller's clever syncopation pattern and Billy Preston's joyful organ solo. The singer's voice punches out the dance beat with the same precision and stimulation as the all-star studio rhythm section. lays down tastefully understated string and synthesizer parts, Vandross fills his words with sighs and glides through the lovely melody with the resignation of one exhausted by love.īassist Marcus Miller cowrote and coproduced the album's three dance tracks with Vandross. The album's standout track is the closing six-minute ballad, "Other Side of the World." As he sings of falling in love unexpectedly with an old friend, Vandross pulls his huge voice back into a simmering whisper. His voice builds from astonishment to anticipation to ecstasy until his rippling voice totally collapses in a sigh of "Oh, my!" This same feeling of a giddy swoon in the face of unforeseen love is continued in "My Sensitivity (gets in the way)." By the end of the song, Vandross is purring with the pure pleasure of improvised mumbles. In the chorus, he finally spies his chance. On "Wait for Love," he sings forlornly in the verses of waiting in vain for romance to come his way. After a year-long layoff, Vandross has written some glowingly romantic songs and kept them for himself. Vandross' previous album, 1983's "Busy Body," was weakened by the fact that the singer gave away his best songs to the albums he produced that year for Dionne Warwick and Aretha Franklin. This illusion has never been stronger than on Vandross' new album. He too gives listeners the illusion of admitting uninhibited love without ever sounding foolish. His big baritone pours out these pleas and exclamations as if he had just been overcome by the feelings nonetheless his expert phrasing is never a smudge out of place. Yet Vandross writes romantic confessions that are open-heartedly vulnerable in the best traditions of premacho soul.
Vandross has updated his hero's brand of romantic soul with street-smart rhythm tracks and sparklingly modern production. The heir comes of age on his fourth album, "The Night I Fell in Love" (Epic FE 39882). Such a combination of romantic surrender and high style is rare indeed, but a legitimate heir to Robinson has emerged in the butterball form of Luther Vandross. Unlike most of us, though, Robinson never loses the tiniest bit of dignity or style as he throws himself into romance. When Smokey Robinson sings of his quest for true love, one can hear his total, unreserved devotion to the cause.