[Virtual Violet]

Luther Vandross Suffers Stroke
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By Joal Ryan

The "Here and Now" must be especially precious for Luther Vandross, felled by a stroke Wednesday.


"Vandross is under medical care and his family and friends are hopeful for a speedy recovery," Carmen Romano, the singer's business manager, said in a statement.


The three-time Grammy-winning R&B star turns 52 on Sunday.


News of Vandross' attack came from his label, J Records. There was no word on his condition, or details on where he was being treated.


The singer's latest album, Dance With My Father, is due out June 17.


The album is the 15th of Vandross' solo career, and features contributions by Beyoncé Knowles, Queen Latifah and Stevie Wonder, among others.


He was scheduled to perform April 30 in Memphis at grand-opening ceremonies for the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, dedicated to the legendary R&B label Stax Records (home to the likes of Otis Redding (news) and Sam and Dave).


Vandross' health has been the subject of speculation for years due to his very public battles with the bulge. The sultry-voiced, six-foot-three soul man has weighed as much as 340 pounds, as little as 200. In recent years, he's been on the svelte side.


"As a celebrity, rumors start," Vandross told the Website HealthTalk in 2001. "There were rumors that I died. There were rumors that I had AIDS (news - web sites), all because of the weight loss."


According to Vandross, he's just a yo-yo dieter, gaining and losing 120 pounds 14 separate times in his life.


"I don't function in the gray area well," he told HealthTalk. "I'm a black-and-white person. I'm either thin-thin, or I'm WWF heavy."


Vandross also copes with diabetes, a condition he was diagnosed with at age 18.


No amount of health issues, though, thwarted one of the most successful music careers ever. Beginning with his 1981 solo debut, Never Too Much, the New York-born singer-songwriter became R&B's standard-bearer of the smooth love song. In short, long before there was American Idol's Ruben Studdard, there was, and is, Luther Vandross (news).


His greatest hits could (and sometimes do) fill a wedding reception: the title cut from Never Too Much, "Give Me the Reason," "Always and Forever," "Power of Love" and his signature tune, "Here and Now."


Vandross' career dates back to the early 1970s, when as something of a prodigy (he was 20), he composed a song, "Everybody Rejoice (A Brand New Day)," for the Broadway musical The Wiz.


Throughout the 1970s, he apprenticed as a back-up vocalist for the likes of Bette Midler (news), Barbra Streisand (news) and David Bowie (news). Bowie's landmark 1975 album Young Americans even contains a track cowritten by Vandross, "Fascination."


Of his new album, Vandross said in a statement, "I have been reexamining the way I write: I don't want to say anything that was just nifty."