For over 50 years, the music of Luther Ronzoni Vandross Jr., or simply Luther, has blessed listeners' ears with arguably the smoothest vocals ever to find a mic. Maybe it was hearing Change’s “The Glow of Love” while Mom did a little cleaning on Saturday morning. Perhaps you needed his haunting yet elite cover of Dionne Warrick’s “Anyone Who Had a Heart” for some time to wallow in self-pity after a breakup. Or maybe “Take You Out” provided the perfect relaxing vibe you needed to chill. Those instances only scratch the surface of the ways Luther touched our lives and music.
And, aside from music journalist Craig Seymour’s book Luther: The Life and Longing of Luther Vandross, the legend’s life away from song is a mystery. Thankfully, award-winning filmmaker Dawn Porter brings her latest documentary, Luther: Never Too Much, to help resolve that. Never Too Much is a first-of-its-kind exploration of the multi-hyphenate artist’s life before, during, and after his rise to musical icon.
With one of the greatest voices ever to make music as the subject, the actual music is paramount to Never Too Much, and it does not disappoint at all in that arena. From Robert Glasper’s score to the selection of songs that make up the film’s soundtrack, it’s a literal celebration of Luther’s musical excellence. There’s a perfect balance between his uptempo work and the ballads that have you grooving one minute and the next remembering why he’s solely responsible for the conception of a whole generation of people of a certain age.
It also presents an education of sorts. The music takes you through various eras of Luther’s life and fully displays his versatility and travels. The musical trip even takes you down a technical path that shows how he made music, and those scenes will leave you in awe of what Luther did.
Like Porter’s previous docs, such as Gideon’s Army, John Lewis: Good Trouble, or The Way I See It, the hallmark of Never Too Much is its thoroughness. Porter doesn’t merely grab a collection of subject matter experts to wax poetic about Luther’s greatness. She gets the people who lived those moments with Luther in real-time.
From childhood friends to long-time collaborators and friends such as Marcus Miller, Lisa Fischer, and Richard Marx, Porter has their unique perspectives of the things that made and broke the Velvet Voice. She even goes as far as to have the woman who engineered the first jingle Luther ever recorded say her piece. Through their collective anecdotes, you feel the warmth of Luther’s often jovial personality, discover the intricacies and work ethic that made him one of music’s standards, and feel those moments showing he was as human as you and I. It has an unmatched authenticity that takes Never Too Much from being a run-of-the-mill music doc to a work that truly honors the life and legacy of one of our best.
The late great Jim Valvano once said you’ll have something special if you laugh, think, and cry seven days a week. Though it’s only 101 minutes, Never Too Much epitomizes that nugget of wisdom as Porter and company masterfully encase all facets of Luther’s 54 years on Earth in limited time. The nostalgia its music ignites and its showcasing of Luther’s sense of humor will make you smile. Its deep dive into his past, motivations, and foundations of his work will make you understand what separated him from others in the art. Your tears will come from its reveal of Luther’s most intimate and vulnerable times while you realize there cannot nor will ever be another Luther. Never Too Much is indeed something special about an extraordinary man who deserves all we can give him and, without question, a must-see.
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