That affiliation spanned a dozen or so years and stretched thru to the mid-90s, a period during which Powell's guitar became an integral part of the Vandross sound; The Doctor also doubled as Luther's musical director and performed on many of Luther's most successful albums. Playing with Vandross made Powell sought-after as a musician, and his session work expanded to include many of the elite in music, performers such as Aretha Franklin and Dionne Warwick in R&B and Grover Washington, Jr., and Bob James in jazz. In 1987, and while still touring with Vandross, Powell released his solo debut, earning a Grammy-nomination for his cover of the Marvin Gaye classic, What's Going On. The Doctor, his sophomore release followed a few years later. However, it wasn't until 1994's Inner City Blues that Powell began to pursue his own career in earnest. Powell self-funded the latter project, the first on his own West Coast Records, and was ready to "sell it door to door". That proved unnecessary as the album turned out to be a huge success, spawning Sade's Song, in our humble opinion, a quintessential smooth jazz track of the 90s. A couple of years later, Doc enjoyed his biggest commercial success with Laid Back voted the #2 jazz record for all of 1996, by year's end.