Barry White possessed the sort of voice that could make reading a grocery list sound like the beginning of a very promising evening. With his unmistakable bass-baritone, sweeping strings and unapologetically romantic songs, White became one of soul music’s most recognizable performers, turning phrases such as “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe” into considerably more than song titles. But behind that famous voice was a serious musician, songwriter, arranger, producer and bandleader who understood exactly how to build a record from the rhythm section upward.

Barry Eugene Carter was born on September 12, 1944, in Galveston, Texas, and grew up largely in Los Angeles. Music entered his life early. He sang gospel music with his mother and taught himself to play piano, developing musical instincts that would eventually prove every bit as important as the extraordinary voice for which he became famous.

His childhood and adolescence were considerably rougher than the luxurious orchestral sound of his later records might suggest. Growing up in South Central Los Angeles exposed White to gangs and crime, and as a teenager he spent time in jail for stealing automobile tires. The experience became an important turning point. White later recalled hearing Elvis Presley’s “It’s Now or Never” while incarcerated and beginning to reconsider the direction in which his life was heading.

Music offered another road, although success did not arrive immediately. White began recording while still young and spent much of the 1960s working behind the scenes in the Los Angeles music business. He learned the machinery of record making from several directions, working in A&R as well as writing, arranging, producing and performing.

That apprenticeship mattered. Barry White did not simply possess an unusually deep voice and stumble into a recording studio one afternoon. By the time the public became familiar with him as a singer, he understood how records were constructed. He knew where the strings should enter, how the rhythm should move, when the backing vocals should rise and, perhaps most importantly, when everything should get out of the way and let that voice do its work.

One of his important early successes came through singer Felice Taylor, with whom he worked on recordings including “It May Be Winter Outside” and “I’m Under the Influence of Love.” His reputation as a producer and arranger grew, but the major breakthrough came when he began working with a female vocal trio consisting of Glodean James, Linda James and Diane Taylor.

White named the group Love Unlimited.

He rehearsed them extensively and produced “Walkin’ in the Rain with the One I Love,” which became a major hit in 1972. White himself appeared on the recording in a spoken telephone conversation, giving listeners an early encounter with the voice that was about to become impossible to mistake for anybody else’s.

Love Unlimited became successful in its own right, but White still saw himself primarily as the man behind the performers. When he began making demonstration recordings intended for a male singer, his friend and business associate Larry Nunes heard them and recognized something White himself apparently wasn't particularly eager to acknowledge: they already had the singer.

Barry White.

White resisted the idea of becoming the featured performer, but fortunately for several million candle manufacturers, he eventually gave in.

His first album under his own name, I've Got So Much to Give, appeared in 1973. Its single “I’m Gonna Love You Just a Little More Baby” became a major hit and established the musical formula that would become unmistakably his: a deep, intimate vocal delivery surrounded by lush strings, orchestration, funk-influenced rhythms and carefully layered arrangements.

It was romantic soul music constructed on a grand scale.

White did not merely sing love songs. He seemed to arrive with an orchestra, mood lighting and a contractual requirement that somebody turn the telephone off.

The following years produced an extraordinary succession of recordings. “Never, Never Gonna Give Ya Up,” “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe,” “You’re the First, the Last, My Everything,” “What Am I Gonna Do with You,” “Let the Music Play,” “You See the Trouble with Me” and “It’s Ecstasy When You Lay Down Next to Me” helped make Barry White one of the defining voices of 1970s soul and popular music.

“Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe,” released in 1974 on the album Can’t Get Enough, became one of his signature recordings. The same album contained “You’re the First, the Last, My Everything,” another song that became inseparable from White’s public identity.

The latter had an unusual history. It originated as a country song written by Peter Radcliffe before White and collaborators transformed it into the exuberant soul recording audiences know today. In Barry White’s hands, there was precious little country left in the room.

At the same time, White was pursuing an even more ambitious musical idea.

He created the Love Unlimited Orchestra, a large instrumental ensemble built around the lush orchestral sound he had developed as a producer. Strings, rhythm instruments and sweeping arrangements became central to the project. The orchestra demonstrated that the Barry White sound did not actually require Barry White to sing.

The instrumental “Love’s Theme” proved the point rather decisively.

Released under the Love Unlimited Orchestra name, “Love’s Theme” became a huge international success and reached number one on the American pop chart. Its sweeping strings and danceable rhythm arrived just as disco was beginning to emerge as a major force in popular music, and the recording is often regarded as an important bridge between orchestral soul and the disco explosion that followed.

White was therefore operating several musical enterprises simultaneously. He was producing Love Unlimited, creating music with the Love Unlimited Orchestra, writing and arranging material, and recording enormously successful albums under his own name.

There were easier ways to earn a living.

His productions were sophisticated affairs. White worked closely with arranger Gene Page and drew upon outstanding session musicians. The resulting records combined strings and orchestral arrangements with bass-heavy grooves, percussion, guitars and keyboards. Beneath all that velvet was a remarkably disciplined musical structure.

That helps explain why Barry White’s recordings have lasted. The voice attracts the immediate attention, but the arrangements reward repeated listening. Remove White’s vocal from many of his best records and there is still an exceptionally accomplished piece of soul, funk or orchestral dance music underneath.

The romantic reputation, however, was unavoidable.

White became associated so strongly with seduction that his music eventually became cultural shorthand for romance. Films, television programs and comedians could use only a few seconds of his voice before audiences understood exactly what was being suggested.

He was in on the joke.

White possessed enough humor about his image to embrace the exaggeration rather than run from it. His appearances in popular culture introduced him to generations who had not necessarily bought his records during the 1970s. One particularly memorable example came through The Simpsons, where White appeared as himself and participated enthusiastically in the program’s peculiar world.

His voice even became useful in dealing with snakes.

In the episode “Whacking Day,” Bart and Lisa discover that snakes are attracted by low-frequency vibrations and use Barry White’s voice to help save them from Springfield’s annual snake-killing celebration. White, an animal lover, was particularly well suited to the joke.

His career was not confined to the 1970s. Musical fashions changed, disco declined, and White went through periods when his recordings were less commercially dominant. He continued performing and recording, however, and eventually enjoyed a substantial resurgence.

The 1994 album The Icon Is Love returned him prominently to contemporary R&B audiences. Its single “Practice What You Preach” became one of his biggest later-career successes and demonstrated that the famous voice had lost none of its authority.

Then came Staying Power in 1999.

The album brought White Grammy recognition, including awards connected with the title track, confirming that he was not simply surviving as a nostalgic reminder of another musical era. Decades after his breakthrough, he remained capable of producing relevant and acclaimed R&B.

White’s musical influence extended far beyond his own records. His lush arrangements helped shape the development of disco and romantic soul, while his productions became fertile territory for later hip-hop and R&B artists sampling earlier recordings. The combination of orchestral grandeur and heavy rhythm that once sounded distinctive became part of the vocabulary of popular music.

His personal life was closely connected with his professional career. Glodean James of Love Unlimited became his wife, and the pair also recorded together as Barry & Glodean. White was a father and had a large family, although accounts of the precise number of his children have varied over the years.

His health became increasingly problematic later in life. White suffered from high blood pressure and associated health complications, eventually developing kidney failure and undergoing dialysis. He died on July 4, 2003, in Los Angeles.

The voice, however, proved considerably harder to silence.

Barry White’s recordings remain instantly recognizable because nobody else sounded quite like him. Plenty of singers have possessed deep voices, and plenty have recorded romantic music, but White combined that extraordinary vocal instrument with an arranger’s understanding of orchestration and a producer’s instinct for atmosphere.

That distinction is important. Barry White was never merely “the man with the deep voice.”

He created a musical environment around that voice.

The strings swept upward. The bass settled into the groove. The drums found exactly the right pace. White would occasionally speak before singing, as though he had personally called the listener aside to discuss an urgent matter of the heart. Then that enormous bass-baritone arrived and there was really very little anybody else could do about it.

His songs celebrated love without embarrassment or apology. At a time when popular music could be cynical, rebellious, political or deliberately abrasive, Barry White was perfectly happy to spend several minutes explaining that he loved somebody very much indeed.

Usually with about forty musicians helping him make the point.

Decades after “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe,” “You’re the First, the Last, My Everything” and “Never, Never Gonna Give Ya Up” first appeared, they continue to fill dance floors, appear in films and television programs, and provide background music whenever popular culture requires an immediate signal that romance has entered the building.

Barry White didn't simply sing love songs.

He gave love its bass line.