Luther Vandross was a musician who sang. So after a while he was also the number one background singer in New York, so he would sing for Bette Midler, he sang on "Fame," he sang for David Bowie, he sang for - whoever needed backgrounds, he would arrange the parts and hook your record up. He also sang on commercials. McDonald's, Budweiser.
Marcus MillerIt's a great thing about being a musician; you don't stop until the day you die, you can improve. So it's a wonderful thing to do.
Marcus MillerI brought the music out to L.A., and the producer Tommy LaPuma heard it and he said - "Man, I love it. Let's do it. Let's record it." I said, "Okay, where's the band?" He said, "We don't have a band. We want it to sound exactly like your demo." I said, "Well, I played all the instruments on the demo." You do that when you're making demos. You got your guitar, you got your sax. He said, "Well, I want it to sound just like that, so get all your instruments out here." So I ended up playing all the instruments.
Marcus MillerLuther Vandross was a musician who sang. So after a while he was also the number one background singer in New York, so he would sing for Bette Midler, he sang on "Fame," he sang for David Bowie, he sang for - whoever needed backgrounds, he would arrange the parts and hook your record up. He also sang on commercials. McDonald's, Budweiser.
Marcus MillerMiles Davis came in a couple of days and said, "Oh, man, I love that. Keep going." So he said, "Let me know when you need trumpet." And he came in, and he was sitting there, and I was very intimidated, because now he's going to play the trumpet on something that I wrote." He starts to play, and I go, "That's not right, but I don't know how to tell him it's not right." Finally he goes, "When are you going to tell me what to do?" He said, "This is your music. I know you know how it's supposed to sound. Stop fooling around. We don't have time."
Marcus MillerI revisited some music that I had written for Miles Devis. I used to work with Miles in the '80s. We did an album - "Tutu," that was really successful for Miles, and a couple of years ago we did "Tutu Revisited," and this is where we played the music from "Tutu." But I knew Miles would absolutely hate it if we just got on the stage and played the music the same way we did it in the '80s.
Marcus MillerLuther Vandross was doing fine, but he said, "Man, I want to do my own project." So he got us all to do a demo, and that demo was "Never Too Much." It took him a year and a half to get signed, because he didn't have a gimmick. The record companies were looking for his gimmick. They said, "What's your gimmick?" He said, "I sing. That's my gimmick." Anyway, he finally got signed and the record was released, and the rest was history.
Marcus Miller