Lionel Richie Biography

Lionel Brockman Richie Jr. was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, an area synonymous with major African-American struggles and their achievements. It was, for example, the birthplace of Rosa Parks, the African-American lady who refused to give up her seat on a bus for a white person; her stand (or seat, as it were) gave impetus to the burgeoning black civil rights movement in the fifties. Richie grew up on the campus of Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), an institution of higher learning set up by a gifted former slave in 1881. He later studied there as well, graduating with a major in economics.

It was as a freshman at Tuskegee Institute that Richie met the people who would later form the Commodores. Initially formed as a pastime and as a way to meet girls, the band hit the local club circuit (with Richie as their saxophonist) in Tuskegee, Montgomery and Birmingham, Alabama, before being invited to New York to attend an audition in 1971. Unbeknownst to the band, the audition was for the support slot on the upcoming Jackson 5 tour – they only found out two weeks later when informed that they were successful. They toured with the Jackson 5 for two and a half years; this caught the attention of the legendary Motown Records, which at that time had the Jackson 5, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, The Supremes (with Diana Ross) and Stevie Wonder under its wing.

The Commodores’ first release under Motown was an instrumental dance number called ‘Machine Gun’, which immediately went to No. 7 on the Billboard charts and stayed there for 15 weeks. This was also the title of their first album, ‘Machine Gun’ (1974), and with naughty tracks like ‘Girls Are My Weakness’, ‘I Feel Sanctified’ and ‘Gonna Blow Your Mind’, the band’s sweaty funk/soul combination was really captured on their debut. 1975’s ‘Caught In The Act’ saw the band deliver even stronger material, with Richie’s and drummer Walter Orange’s contrasting vocals complementing up tempo funk songs like ‘Slippery When Wet’ and ‘Wide Open’.

‘Caught in the Act’ was released in February 1975, and by October 1975 they had released another album, ‘Movin’ On’. If a listener was looking very closely, he or she might have noticed the subtle progression of the band’s sound. Their hardcore funk was still present, especially on the horn-powered ‘Mary Mary’ and ‘Hold On’. However, the album is best remembered for ‘Sweet Love’, penned by Richie, a soulful number bathed in gospel and inspirational worship music. R&B and soul aficionados raved about it, but it also struck a chord with pop listeners, reaching No. 5 on the Billboard pop singles charts.

‘Hot on the Tracks’ (1976) followed hot on the tracks of 1975’s double whammy, and it was another album to please the R&B faithful. There was still funk in doses, but ballads like ‘Just to be close To You’ signalled the crossover direction the band would take in a few years time. The band’s self titled fifth album followed in 1977. They also released a live album, ‘Commodores Live!’ (1977) in the same year, recorded in Atlanta and Washington DC.

‘Natural High’ (1978) is when The Commodores made the recognisable switch to target the pop and adult contemporary audience. With the monster hit of ‘Three Times A Lady’, the Commodores, and Richie in particular, were touted as major crossover stars. With more slow R&B jam numbers and sophisticated funk moments replacing the uptempo funk on their earlier work, the band endured some criticism for their next album ‘Midnight Magic’ (1979), which their fans considered to be watered-down pop.

The beginning of the new decade saw the Commodores continue their prodigious output, with ‘Heroes’ (1980) and ‘In the Pocket’ (1981). ‘In The Pocket’ is best known for the Richie-sung numbers like ‘Lucy’, ‘Why You Wanna Try Me’ and ‘Lady (You Bring Me Up)’. It was not a bad way to end Richie’s time in the Commodores; in 1982, he made the decision to leave the band to pursue a solo career. After Richie left, they enjoyed a relatively successful career (winning a Grammy), although not matching the Richie era, and they still continue to tour. In 2008, Richie expressed a wish to rejoin the band before it was too late, especially as the band’s guitarist Milan Williams had died from cancer in 2006.

At around the turn of the decade, Richie was beginning to consider a career as a solo artist. He was already penning many of the Commodores’ hit songs, and in 1980, he wrote and produced country singer Kenny Rogers’ No. 1 smash hit ‘Lady’. Producing Rogers’ ‘Share Your Love’ (1981) album was the start of a long friendship with Rogers. In 1981, Richie sang a duet with Diana Ross, ‘Endless Love’, which became the theme song for the movie of the same name (starring Brooke Shields). ‘Endless Love’ topped the charts for an incredible nine weeks, becoming the most successful single in Motown history.

Richie immediately got to work on recording his first album for Motown, simply titled ‘Lionel Richie’ (1982) and was a veritable success, reaching No. 3 on the pop charts, selling over 4 million albums and its lead single ‘Truly’ reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. If ‘Lionel Richie’ was a good start, his follow-up ‘Can’t Slow Down’ (1983) was stratospheric. It spent three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart, and its popularity and longevity was proved when it spent 160 weeks (59 consecutive weeks) on the Top 10 and a total of 160 weeks in the Top 200, winning a 1984 Grammy for Album of the Year in the meantime. Richie was also invited to perform at the closing ceremony of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, an event that was broadcast worldwide.

The album’s monster hit was ‘Hello’, with Richie’s plaintive serenade, meandering piano and morose bassline, it was guaranteed endless airings at weddings, prom nights and on first dates. The music video fared rather less well unfortunately, with Mr Richie playing a drama teacher who pursues one of his students, who happens to be blind, by popping up at importune moments crooning “Hello, is it me you’re looking for?” An unfortunate choice of words, and the sappy (and at times sinister) video was voted worst music video of all time in a poll of 8,000 music fans by UK TV music channel The Box. In 2007 on a German chat show, Richie good-naturedly performed the song having inhaled helium, finally redeeming the song’s two decades of overplay on easy listening stations.

In 1985, Richie co-wrote ‘We Are the World’ with Michael Jackson, a charity single that roped in 45 music and movie stars to raise money and awareness in aid of the famine in Ethiopia. Together with Lindsey Buckingham, Harry Belafonte, Dan Aykroyd, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Bob Geldof, Billy Joel, Cyndi Lauper, Bette Midler, Kenny Rogers, Diana Ross, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner, Stevie Wonder and various members of the Jackson clan, ‘We Are The World’ was 1985’s best selling single.

At the end of 1985, he was on the charts again with ‘Say You, Say Me’, a song recorded for the movie ‘White Nights’ (1985), which starred Russian ballet legend Mikhail Baryshnikov, Helen Mirren and a young Isabella Rossellini (daughter of director Roberto Rossellini and screen goddess Ingrid Bergman). He would later win an Oscar for the ballad as well. The song was included on ‘Dancing on the Ceiling’ (1986), which did respectably well in the charts and in sales, although nowhere near matching the phenomenal ‘Can’t Slow Down’. After 1986, Richie did slow down, as he was exhausted from the writing, recording and touring process, as well as spending a year taking care of his father in Alabama. Lionel Sr. would pass away in 1990. ‘Back To Front’ (1992) was the only sign that Richie still existed in the new decade, and even that was a best-of album with a couple of new tracks.

Sticking with his formula of smoothly crafted pop and R&B, with the focus always on his voice, ‘Louder Than Words’ (1996), ‘Time’ (1998), ‘Renaissance’ (2000) excited little interest. ‘Just For You’ (2004) was notable for the guest appearances of Lenny Kravitz and Daniel Bedingfield, while ‘Coming Home’ (2006) sparked some interest as Richie’s adopted daughter Nicole, reality TV star and aspiring actress, appeared on the music video of the album’s lead single, ‘I Call It Love’. In 2007, he performed ‘All Night Long’ at the Australian Idol as a surprise guest, and has hinted that he would do a collaboration with 2008 American Idol contender David Cook, after hearing Cook’s performance of ‘Hello’. Richie is also releasing a new album in early 2009, entitled ‘Just Go’.