Songoftheday 6/25/19 - Two hearts that beat as one, our lives have just begun...
from the album Songs (1994)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #2 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13
Today's song of the day comes from (the late) Luther Vandross, who had last been seen with his top ten pop hit from the movie Mo' Money from the summer of 1992, "The Best Things In Life Are Free", which was a "duet" with Janet Jackson and featured New Edition alums Bell Biv Devoe, and Ralph Tresvant. It was Luther's fourth top ten hit, all since 1989's "Here And Now", so he was on a pretty good run at that time. But his eighth studio album, Never Let Me Go, which arrived in 1993, must have been seen as a sort of disappointment, for the biggest single from it, "Little Miracles (Happen Everyday)", while slipping into the R&B top ten at #10, stalled way down at #62 on Billboard magazine's pop Hot 100 chart (it did become a moderate success in UK, at #28, one of three top-40 UK hits from the album). Nevertheless, sales were good enough to have the album peak at #6, at that time his highest-rank on the Top 200 Albums sales chart, and he nabbed three Grammy nominations from the record.
Wasting no time, the following year Luther returned with the all cover songs collection Songs. With thirteen songs spanning ages and genres, it seemed to me to be a special project for Luther to record some of his favorites. The first single from the set was a cover of the massively successful duet between Lionel Richie and Diana Ross, "Endless Love". The original, released promoting the movie Endless Love starring a young Brooke Shields, spent nine weeks at #1 on the American pop chart in 1981...
Taking Diana's place in Luther's version is another diva superstar, Mariah Carey, who was just at the end of promoting her Music Box album, which spun off four big hits with "Anytime You Need A Friend", "Without You/Never Forget You", and a pair of #1's in "Hero" and "Dreamlover". With that kind of vocal powerhouse pairing, there was no denying that radio and their fanbases were going to eat it up, even with nothing really new arrangement-wise in the record, with producer Walter Afanasieff bringing the orchestral steadiness to the track, allowing them to vamp all over the place.
"My Endless Love" became Luther's highest-charting single (and to date his final top ten pop hit) in October of 1994. The song also climbed to #7 on the R&B chart in Billboard, though it surprisingly stopped at #11 on their Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio format list. Internationally, the single topped the chart in New Zealand for five weeks, and reached the top ten in Australia (#2), Belgium (#2), the UK (#3, his second top ten there), Ireland (#4), Iceland (#5), Canada (#6), the Netherlands (#6), Switzerland (#6), Norway (#6), Italy (#8), and Sweden (#10). It also got to #12 in France, #13 in Austria, and #14 in Germany. The duet earned Luther and Mariah a nomination for Best Pop Vocal Collaboration in its first year of being given out, which was won by "Funny How Time Slips Away" by Al Green and Lyle Lovett. The Songs album was also up for Best R&B album (also in its first year), which went to Boyz II Men's II set.
The second single from Songs would be a take on Heatwave's quiet storm classic ballad "Always And Forever", which climbed to #16 on the R&B chart, #25 on the Adult Contemporary tally, and stopped at #58 on the pop Hot 100. It also was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Performance, losing out to Babyface's "When Can I See You" in 1995. The third release from the record in America was a "double A-sided" single, with both songs on the commercial single getting radio play. His version of Stephen Stills' summer of love anthem "Love The One You're With" got to #95 on the pop Hot 100, and #33 on the Adult Contemporary list, while his take on the Friends Of Distinction's "Going In Circles" went to #28 on the R&B chart. "Love The One You're With" was nommed for a Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, which was taken by Elton John's "Can You Feel The Love Tonight". Finally, Luther's upbeat cover of McFadden & Whitehead's disco classic "Ain't No Stopping Us Now" landed at #22 on the British singles chart, joining "Endless Love", "Always & Forever" (#20), and "Love The One You're With" (#31) with producing four top-40 UK hits from Songs.
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
Now here is Luther and Mariah performing live at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 1994...
In 2012, Lionel Richie recruited Shania Twain to sing "Endless Love" with him for his covers-of-himself album Tuskegee. The result climbed to #12 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart while "bubbling under" the pop Hot 100 at #116, while the album was a #1 sales success...
Finally, back to Luther and Mariah, on an awards show I cannot place (possibly the 1995 Grammys) where Mariah is simply unstoppable by the end...
Up tomorrow: Hit production team ask about your dancefloor desires.
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