LUTHER VANDROSS was one of the finest soul singers of his generation. His sensual voice and debonair manner sold 25 million albums and earned him the sobriquet “The Love Doctor”. He hated the name but he still called his multiplatinum hits collection The Best of Love (pronounced, of course, “lurve”) and his romantic ballads were probably only rivalled in the seduction stakes by Barry White.

He was also a highly successful producer and songwriter for other artists such as Dionne Warwick, Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross and Whitney Houston. Eventually he joined them in the realms of superstardom, but his early career was marked by struggle.

For several years he toiled as a backing singer and he did not release his first solo album until the relatively late age of 30. Even then, mainstream success was far from instant and the first of his nine Grammy awards did not come until 1990. He enjoyed one of the most successful record releases when Dancing with My Father appeared soon after the news of his stroke in 2003.

Born Luther Ronzoni Vandross into a family steeped in gospel and soul music, he began playing the piano as a child and put together his first group at high school in the Bronx, New York, with Carlos Alomar and Robin Clark.

The three friends then formed the musical theatre workshop, Listen My Brother, earning a residency at the Apollo Theatre, Harlem, the legendary home of black American music, where the likes of James Brown, Gladys Knight and the Jackson Five all began their careers.

Yet Vandross had to wait for recognition. The inclusion of his song Everybody Rejoice (A Brand New Day) in the 1972 Broadway musical The Wiz was an encouraging start. But when Listen My Brother broke up, he was forced to spend a couple of years in mundane day jobs.

His big break eventually came in 1975 via Alomar, who had secured a high-profile berth as David Bowie’s guitarist. Alomar organised the introductions, and Bowie was so impressed that he invited Vandross to sing on his album, Young Americans. He even secured a co-writing credit on Fame, which became a US No 1.

On tour with Bowie as a backing singer, he was also invited to perform in his own right as the opening act. It gave him exactly the exposure he needed, and he was soon in huge demand as a session singer, appearing on albums by Bette Midler, Ringo Starr, Carly Simon, Chaka Khan, Donna Summer, the Average White Band and Barbra Streisand.

Yet his ambition was still to have a solo career and in 1976, he formed the R&B band Luther, who were signed by Cotillion Records. Twelve months and two albums later, they were dropped, and Vandross returned to session singing. Among the hits on which he featured anonymously were Sister Sledge’s We Are Family and Chic’s Le Freak. He was also the lead vocalist on The Glow of Love, the debut album by disco group Change. Just as profitable was a sideline in writing and singing advertising jingles, with 7Up, Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken among his clients.

It was not until late 1981 that Vandross released his debut solo LP, Never Too Much, on Epic Records. The title track topped the specialist R&B singles chart. Yet the album only scraped the bottom reaches of the Top 20, as did its successor, Forever, For Always, For Love (1982). His third album, Busy Body, appeared in 1983 and repeated the pattern. Although he was dominant in the R&B charts, mainstream pop success proved elusive.

His fellow artists, however, were more appreciative of his talents. In 1982 he produced Aretha Franklin’s Jump to It. The following year he performed a similar role on Dionne Warwick’s comeback album, So Amazing, which included the duet How Many Times Can We Say Goodbye. It all helped his growing reputation. His 1985 album, The Night I Fell in Love, was the first to make the Top 20 in both Britain and the US and produced the hit singles ’Til My Baby Comes Home and It’s Over Now. A year later, his fifth solo album, Give Me the Reason, did even better. It reached No 9 in Britain, earned a Grammy nomination in the US and produced hit singles in the title track and Stop to Love.

Tragedy struck in 1987 when Yogi Horton, the drummer in his touring band, jumped to his death from a 17th-floor hotel window, after allegedly telling his wife that he was tired of living in Vandross’s shadow.

But the incident did not slow the singer’s progress. By 1988, two years after its release, Give Me a Reason had risen to No 3 in the British album charts, a position matched later the same year by his next album, Any Love. The 1989 hits compilation, The Best of Luther Vandross . . . The Best of Love went double platinum and the extracted Here and Now gave him his first Top Ten single in the American pop charts and won him his first Grammy.

His success was fuelled by relentless touring. In 1989 he sold out ten shows at Wembley Arena in London and shortly after filled Madison Square Garden, New York, for four consecutive nights. At last his singles were successful in the pop sphere, and Power of Love/Love Power, Don’t Want to Be a Fool and The Best Things in Life Are Free — the last a duet with Janet Jackson — all produced Top Ten hits. On the release of the album Power of Love, which won two Grammies in 1992, the city of Los Angeles even declared a “Luther Vandross Day”.

Yet behind the scenes, not everything was going quite so smoothly. In 1991 Vandross attempted to sue Sony Entertainment, the parent company of his record label, seeking release from his contract. It was seven years before he eventually became a free agent. Given his own songwriting skills, it was perhaps ironic that it was Songs (1994), an album of covers, that gave him his greatest chart success. The album reached No 1 in Britain and No 5 in the US, and included the duet Endless Love with Mariah Carey, a Top 3 single on both sides of the Atlantic.

It marked the commercial peak of his career. His next album, Secret Love (1996), was successful enough, reached No 9 in America and 14 in Britain. But musical tastes were changing. Hip-hop had entered the mainstream and old-school soul was being eclipsed by rap. When Vandross finally secured his release from Epic and signed to Virgin in 1998, his first album for the new label was a disappointment, failing to make the Top 20 in Britain or America.

He moved swiftly on to Clive Davis’s J Records for Luther Vandross (2001), while Epic milked his back catalogue, releasing no fewer than four different “hits” collections between 1997 and 2000.

At 6 ft 3in, Vandross was a big man and he fought a long battle with his weight. He once went on the Oprah Winfrey show to boast that he had lost 122lb (55kg) on a liquid diet, although he put much of it back on again. He also had mild diabetes and in April 2003 he suffered a stroke from which he never fully recovered.

The stroke came just as he was about to release a new album, Dancing with My Father. Duets with the hip-hop stars Busta Rhymes and Queen Latifah, and the intense publicity surrounding his illness, helped to make this his most successful album in a decade. The record entered the American charts at No 1 and went on to win him four Grammy awards.

Vandross was too ill to attend the ceremony in person, but delivered a pre-recorded “thank you” from his wheelchair.

He never married and had no children.

Luther Vandross, soul singer, was born in New York on April 20, 1951. He died on July 1, 2005, aged 54.