En Vogue opened up for Luther Vandross during his Never Let Me Go tour in the early 1990s, and the girl group’s Dawn Robinson recalled the late singer not caring for the group.
“He didn’t like us very much,” she said in a recent interview. She recalled that the contract had countless restrictions including the inability to wear sequin and certain colors like red, white, blue, or black.
Robinson also recalled the time the late singer called the cops on the girl group, which was also written about in his 2004 autobiography, Luther: The Life and Longing of Luther Vandross.
Robinson detailed the incident saying that Vandross didn’t want them to pass his door which was the easiest route to the stage. So when they did he was prompted to contact authorities.
“He called the police on us when we were in Miami because he said we walked past his door to go to the stage. He wanted us to take a cart and have one of those golf carts drive us around to the front of the venue of the coliseum, with all the fans at the concession stands buying stuff. He wanted us to drive all the way through the hallway, go to the front of the building and walk down the steps past all the fans…and walk to the stage. ‘Do not pass my door.’”
She continued, “He called the police. The police showed up. The police were like, ‘Oh my God, we thought you guys were tearing the place apart.’”
Even though he seemingly made it difficult for En Vogue, Dawn takes accountability for signing the contract. “It was not his fault. We got on the road. We signed that contract. I just think that he could have been like a little less of a stickler.”
She added that she wouldn’t change the experience and learned a lot from the icon. “He had a vision and this was his show. Yeah, he was mean to us. It was very rough. But we learned a lot from him and he was amazing. I wouldn’t change anything.”
