Though many people celebrate today for reasons profane and drug-addled, April 20th also marks the birthday of two musical titans.
First, Lionel Hampton was born on this day in 1908. He helped establish the vibraphone as a serious jazz instrument with a career spanning eight decades. He played not just the vibraphone, but also the piano, drums and other percussive instruments. He worked with a laundry list of jazz greats, including Benny Goodman, Buddy Rich, Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz and Quincy Jones, and is a 1992 inductee in the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame.
It's said that his 1942 verison of "Flying Home" anticipated the sounds that would become rhythm & blues. He also maintained an interest in charity, creating a number of housing projects in Harlem with the help of then-governor Nelson Rockefeller. He was also a staunch Republican — a markedly different proposition than that phrase would imply today — and served as a delegate to several Republican National Conventions. He died in 2002 of congestive heart failure.
Last but certainly not least, Luther Vandross was born on this day in 1951. During his career as a singer/songwriter and record producer, he sold over 25 million albums and won eight Grammy Awards. A New York native, he came up as a child in the Alfred E. Smith Houses, a "project" (i.e. public housing development). Regardless of these humble beginnings, he began playing piano at the age of three, a part of a family of musically inclined individuals. His sister Patricia was a member of the vocal group The Crests, and sang on their 1958 #2 hit, "Sixteen Candles."
Vandross worked with so many greats — Roberta Flack, David Bowie (he co-wrote "Fascination" and toured with Bowie in 1974), Aretha Franklin, Quincy Jones (Vandross wrote "Everybody Rejoice" and appeared as a choir member in the movie), Diana Ross, Carly Simon, Dionne Warwick, Chaka Khan, Stevie Wonder (background vocals on "Part Time Lover"), Donna Summer, Bette Midler, Janet Jackson, Patti Austin, Chic, Mariah Carey and Barbra Streisand. He wrote and sang commercial jingles and did many stints as a background vocalist before breaking through as a member of the group Change before beginning as a solo artist with Epic Records in 1981. That first album was called Never Too Much, and included the hit title track and a version of the Burt Bacharach/Hal Davis song "A House Is Not A Home." Alongside, his high school classmate Nat Adderly Jr. arranged the album and began a partnership that endured through Vandross' career. Vandross was a staple of the 80s, still doing background and guest vocal work while dropping hits like "Stop To Love" and the duet with Gregory Hines "There's Nothing Better Than Love" in 1986, continuing his campaign of hit music through the next two decades, capped off iwth a Grammy grand slam for his album Dance With My Father, dedicated to the father who died of complications surrounding diabetes when Vandross was eight years old.
Vandross himself suffered from diabetes and hypertension, aggrivated by ballooning weight issue she struggled with for years. He'd just completed the vocals on Dance With My Father when he suffered a stroke on April 16. 2003. He made two more public appearances — at the 2004 Grammy Awards to accept for Song of the Year, and on The Oprah Winfrey Show — before dying July 1, 2005 of a heart attack.
Vandross' legacy was one associated closely with love — despite a number of upbeat songs, he was considered the soundtrack to lovemaking, a constant element of the quiet storm woven into the tapestry of Black neighborhoods like blacktop and police sirens.
In the words of our ancestors, we honor both of these American musical institutions with the words anedge hirak Lionel Hampton and anedge hirak Luther Vandross, eternally grateful for their contributions.
[Source: Wikipedia, Find A Grave, Wikipedia, PDX Retro]
