So how many babies did YOU make to Luther?

Kelefa Sanneh has written the best obit on Luther Vandross and his legacy. As one who came to Vandross late, it's confirmation of what I felt as I listened to the lumpen Essential Luther Vandross I got just days before he died. After a week, I sought relief in Eric B & Rakim, or better, Al Green; returning to those guys after Luther felt as if a soccer ball had winded me in the middle of a triumphant run to the goal.

For all his considerable prowess, Vandross never felt quite human; his voice was smooth, sweet, without grit or wear, luscious but not lustrous. It was the human voice as signifier of beauty; a man for whom ritual mattered more than romance – and definitely more than sex. A lot of those '80s ballads for which Vandross has gotten so much praise are rather limp, anchored by the tinny programming and plinky keybs of '80s R&B. Rarely do you sense that the happiness he sang about with such shit-eating intensity in songs like "She Wants Me Back" and "The Power of Love" was earned after a spell in purgatory. It's the lack of tension in his songs, voice, and persona which keep Vandross from attaining the gravitas of Al Green, in whom you sensed real conflict years before The Belle Album.

Only a churl would downplay Vandross' considerable achievements, so let's just say that he deserved the title Greatest R&B Singer. If "great" means disembodied and abstract as much as peerless and untouchable, then I bow before him.

Finally: call me stupid, but I never suspected Vandross was homosexual. It never occurred to me. Now I realize that he played Cary Grant as well as he played Great Singer.