Although best known among mainstream record buyers for the multi-million selling pop/R&B classic "If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't Want To Be Right," Luther Ingram earned himself a solid reputation among R&B music buyers during a nine-year period from 1969 to 1978, when he racked up close to twenty consecutive hit records.

Born on November 30, 1937 in Jackson, Tennessee, one of seven children, Luther was raised in Alton, Illinois, where - encouraged by his mother - he first began singing as part of a family gospel group, The Midwest Crusaders, Luther's interest in music led him to form a secular vocal group (known as The Gardenias) with his brothers and some high school friends; touring the midwest, the team met Ike Turner who subsequently produced the groups's first single, "Flaming Love."

Luther began his solo career after traveling to New York in the early Sixties. "I was working on the McDonnell space program at the time and I decided I wanted to be in music," he recalls. "I arrived in Manhattan and went straight to a building where "The Ed Sullivan Show" was taped on Broadway...and some background singers were coming out of the deli next door. They asked if I was a singer...and next thing I know, they were telling me that Decca Records was looking for new artists. I went up to the office and sang one of my songs, "You Never Miss Your Water," accapalla for Milt Gabler at Decca and he signed me up."

Unfortunately, the single went nowhere chartwise and Luther began doing background sessions and writing songs, collaborating with folks like Johnny Nash...and living across the hall from a youthful Jimi Hendrix! According to interviews he did in the early '70s, famed producers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller arranged a deal for Luther with Smash Records, a division of Mercury, but once again, it was a dead end.

Luther's career finally took an upturn when he signed with KoKo Records in 1968. Shortly afterwards, the small independent label concluded a distribution deal with powerful Memphis-based Stax Records and Luther hit the charts for the first time in 1969 with "Pity for the Lonely." "My Honey And Me," one of his own compositions, was the follow up and became a hit for the Emotions three years later.

Luther's third single, "Aint That Loving You (For More Rasons Than One)" (originally recorded by Johnny Taylor for his 1967 Stax album Wanted: One Soul Singer) became his first Top 10 R&B hit in the spring of 1970, while eighteen months later, in the late fall of 1971, Luther's songwriting skills helped give The Staple Singers their first Top 5 hit with "Respect Yourself."

Although four more of Luther's own singles (all included on his debut LP, I've Been Here All The Tiime) hit Billboard's R&B charts between May of 1971 and February of 1972, it was his anguished and emotionally torrid performance of a tale of classic infidelity that took Luther Ingram's career to a new level.

Recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, "(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't Want To Be Right" topped the R&B charts and climbed to No. 3 on the Hot 100 and went on to sell several millin copies. Over the years, it has been recorded by artists from many different musical genres including country legend Barbara Mandrell, British superstar Rod Stewart, R&B's own Millie Jackson, and bluesman Bobby 'Blue' Bland.

The record's immediate success resulted in extensive touring with Isaac hayes and together, the two broke house records at the Apollo Theatre in New York during a sold-out stint at the famed Harlem venue. Luther's touring activities took him across the country, performing at auditoriums, theatres and night clubs, sharing bills with a slew of artists including The Temptations, The Four Tops, Aretha Franklin, B.B. King, Millie Jackson, and Al Green.

His second KoKo album yielded a number of further hits, "I'll Be Your Shelter (In Time Of Storm)," "Always," and "Love Ain't Gonna Run Me Away." These kept the momentum going between 1973 and 1977, until, in early 1978, Luther scored another Top 20 R&B hit with "Do You Love Somebody," which would become the title cut for his last KoKo LP.

After a recording hiatus of almost eight years, Luther signed with Profile Records in 1986 and enjoyed some chart success with songs featured on his one album for the label.