Luther Vandross was one the greatest to have ever done it hands down, but before we came to know him as LUTHER, those in the music industry knew him as the highly sought after background vocalist, music producer, vocal arranger and songwriter. Everyone from Chaka Khan to Barbra Streisand, to David Bowie, Donna Summer and more requested Luther to contribute to their music. He was in demand.

The only thing many couldn’t figure out was why Luther wasn’t eagerly jumping all over the deals some record labels were throwing his way. The reason is because our beloved Luther had great business sense and was so much more than just a crooner. Labels learned real quick that they couldn’t pull just anything over on him. So Luther held out for a long time because he demanded two extremely important things that are critical to an artist’s career:
(1) That he can contractually maintain 100% creative control over his art; and (2) which is even harder to acquire: That he own all the rights to his music publishing.

Back then and even today, that is oftentimes a big no-no in the music industry, so record labels were not trying to hear that because…