Opulence and desire

July 5, 2003
Barry White, Voice of Seduction, Dies at 58
By JON PARELES

Barry White, whose deep voice and lushly orchestrated songs added up to soundtracks for seduction, died yesterday in Los Angeles. He was 58.

A statement released by his manager, Ned Shankman, said the cause was kidney failure caused by hypertension.

In his songs, Mr. White created a fantasy world of opulence and desire. As strings played hovering chords, guitars echoed off into the distance, and drums provided a muffled heartbeat, Mr. White spoke in his bottomless bass and crooned the reassuring sentiments of hits like ''Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe,'' ''You're the First, the Last, My Everything'' and ''It's Ecstasy When You Lay Down Next to Me.''

Songs like ''Love's Theme,'' his 1973 instrumental hit for the Love Unlimited Orchestra, ushered in the disco era, and through the 70's he became a pop fixture whose albums were destined for countless bedrooms. His career rebounded in the 1980's and 90's as the children of his original fans rediscovered his music.

Mr. White's childhood was as rough as his songs were smooth. He was born in Galveston, Tex., where he learned gospel singing from his mother and taught himself to play piano and organ. After his family moved to Los Angeles, he made his recording debut at 11, playing piano on the Jesse Belvin hit ''Goodnight My Love.'' But living in the poor neighborhoods of South Central Los Angeles, he was also in and out of trouble, and in 1960 spent seven months in jail for stealing tires.

According to Mr. White's 1999 autobiography, ''Love Unlimited: Insights on Life and Love'' (Broadway Books), while in jail he heard Elvis Presley's hit ''It's Now or Never,'' and decided to give up crime. His brother, Darryl, was killed in a dispute over small change in 1983.

He became a singer and pianist with a Los Angeles rhythm-and-blues group, the Upfronts, and helped arrange Bob and Earl's 1963 hit, ''The Harlem Shuffle,'' later remade by the Rolling Stones. He also toured with the rhythm-and-blues singer Jackie Lee. During a stop in Alabama, he called a white operator ''baby'' while phoning home. Moments later, the police pulled up next to his phone booth and threatened him with jail if he did it again.

In the mid-1960's, Mr. White worked as a talent scout for Mustang Records, where he signed a trio of female singers, Love Unlimited. He produced their 1972 hit, ''Walking in the Rain With the One I Love,'' and went on to marry one of them, Glodean James, who survives him. She was his second wife; he had already had four children with his first.

In 1973, Mr. White began his solo career, starting a long string of hits with ''I'm Gonna Love You Just a Little More, Baby.'' Along with his own songs, he wrote and produced hits for Love Unlimited and the Love Unlimited Orchestra, and performed at elaborate concerts, at one point leading an 80-woman orchestra.

After disco peaked in the late 1970's, Mr. White's career ebbed. But his songs and the image he had created proved durable. Rappers and dance-music acts including 50 Cent, the Beastie Boys and Daft Punk have sampled his music. And in the late 1980's, he began a career resurgence. He appeared on Quincy Jones's ''Back on the Block'' album in 1990, and with the rapper Big Daddy Kane in 1991.

In 1994, he had a two-million-selling album, ''The Icon Is Love,'' and his 1999 album, ''Staying Power,'' won two rhythm-and-blues Grammy Awards. His ''All-Time Greatest Hits'' album, released in 1994, has also sold a million copies. His voice was used on episodes of ''The Simpsons,'' and he appeared on ''Ally McBeal'' and in a widely broadcast Apple Computer commercial. He had been working on an album of duets to be released later this year.

Mr. White was hospitalized last September for kidney failure and had been undergoing dialysis. Along with his wife, who no longer lived with him, he is survived by his daughters La nece, Deniece, Nina, Shaheara and Barriana, who was born four weeks ago; his sons Barry Jr. and Darrell; his stepson, McKevin; his companion, Catherine Denton, the mother of Barriana; and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.