Luther Vandross - All My Love: The Anti-Belting Masterpiece

All My Love, sang by the late great Luther Vandross is magnificent. Of course this is not exactly breaking news. But when this song popped up during my daily shuffle, it had been a while since I had heard this song, and it was probably the first time that I really listened to it.
Luther Vandross was one of the most talented male vocalist to ever record. He was capable of singing pretty much anything. His jazz influenced R&B style was incredibly influential. As far as singers go, I would call him the male counterpart to Whitney Houston. His voice was just that powerful.
"All My Love" is a pretty typical 80s R&B song in my opinion. But it becomes a masterpiece when Luther Vandross sings it. The beauty is in the unexpected soft delicate finesse that he puts into the chorus. The lyrics of the verse are very rhythmic and continuous. They have a driving quality that creates excitement for the destination. When the chorus comes, you expect him to take it to a really big place, to explode, to just really go there. But instead he takes it quieter, softer, closer. He lets the last note linger and just plays with it a little. Its so magically sexy, intimate. It left me hungrier, lustier, wanting more, but loving what I was getting. He's truly interpretting the song, singing it his way and being real to the intention. "A thousand kisses from you is never too much"
This is a great lesson in dynamics and listening. Sometimes its easy to fall into the conventions of a genre. But sometimes when a song seems to be going one way, try the opposite way just to see what happens.