Dance with My Father Songwriting Credits by Luther Vandross

This is the album where Vandross stopped being the sole author of his own records. He has a writing credit on nine of the fourteen tracks, and on eight of those nine he shares it with an outside writer he had never leaned on before: Ezekiel Lewis, James Porte, Robbie Nevil, Rex Rideout on three songs, Reed Vertelney on three, and Richard Marx on one. The four songs with no Vandross credit at all are the covers and the remix. 'Buy Me a Rose' is a country song written by Jim Funk and Erik Hickenlooper and cut by Kenny Rogers in 1999, handed here to Shep Crawford, who produced it and played everything on it. 'The Closer I Get to You' belongs to Reggie Lucas and James Mtume, who wrote it for Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway in 1978. Both 'Lovely Day' tracks are Bill Withers and Skip Scarborough, with the Part II remix adding Lionel Richie and Ronald LaPread for the 'Say Yeah' sample lifted from the Commodores. The one that mattered is track seven. 'Dance with My Father' is a Vandross and Marx co-write, and the Song of the Year Grammy in 2004 went to the pair of them as writers, not to Vandross as a performer. Marx also played the keyboards and programmed the drums on it. Production stays mostly with Vandross, who produced ten tracks alone or with a partner; Marcus Miller took 'Lovely Day' and 'She Saw You', Nat Adderley Jr. took 'The Closer I Get to You' and co-produced the closer, and Crawford took 'Buy Me a Rose'.