To call Lionel Richie an underrated artist thirty years ago would have brought vilification, but the years have a way of bringing perspective, and time has been a friend to the work that Lionel Richie has released over his half century in the music business. A founding member of the Commodores, he was the heart of that band’s most memorable music, and steered the group from its funky roots to an uber-popular pop/soul sound, resulting in hit after hit from 1976-81. Songs like “Easy,” “Three Times A Lady,” “Sail On,” and a dozen other songs made the Commodores an A-List act, and Richie served as songwriter and singer of a majority of the band’s smashes.
After penning Kenny Rogers’ “Lady” and issuing his own 1981 smash duet with Diana Ross, “Endless Love,” Richie grew bigger than the Commodores, and an exit for a solo career was inevitable. His 1982 self-titled Motown solo debut, produced by longtime Commodores producer James Anthony Carmichael, was everything his newly found adult contemporary fans had hoped for. Beginning with the pop ballad “Truly,” it was a shimmering pop/soul disc beginning to end. And while some longtime Commodores fans simmered at the lack of funk on the disc, Richie showed himself to be a masterful writer of irresistible melodies and firmly established himself as one of the top pop singers in the world.
Richie followed his debut with the even more popular Can’t Slow Down. That record yielded five top 10 hits – led by the anthemic dance jam “All Night Long” – and won a somewhat controversial 1984 Grammy Award for Best Album (beating out monster recordings by Bruce Springsteen and Prince). It also opened the door for Richie to close out the 1984 Olympics with a performance that was viewed by a stunning two billion people worldwide.
The level of Lionel Richie’s popularity in the mid-80s was exemplified by his selection as the host of the American Music Awards, and his leading role in the formation of USA for Africa and the monster international smash, “We Are The World,” one of the biggest songs of all-time. He also managed to sneak in an Oscar for his #1 “Say You, Say Me,” from the movie White Nights.
However, all careers have arcs, and Richie’s recording career appeared to be peaking by 1986. As people-pleasing as it was, Can’t Slow Down had hints of formula to it, and that became more pronounced on Richie’s next disc, Dancing On The Ceiling. While yet another multi-platinum smash, Dancing was clearly a lesser album than its predecessor, and appeared to display an artist hitting a creative fork in the road.
Richie’s life took a difficult turn in the late 80s, as burnout, the death of his father, and a rather public divorce caused him to take a self-imposed hiatus for a half decade. He wasn’t heard from on record again until 1992’s Back To Front, a greatest hits album with a couple new cuts. Richie didn’t record another full studio album until 1996’s poorly reviewed Louder Than Words, on which he appeared to be struggling for relevance in a very changed musical environment (even including a rap song). He sounded more comfortable two years later on Time.
When Richie released Renaissance on Island Records in 2000, it was expected to fade quickly as a forgettable album by a former star. Instead, it was a comeback to form. Adopting a Latin dance rhythm that was being popularized by a number of pop stars at the time, Richie wrote his best material in years and found a contemporary sound that fit both him and his longtime fans. And rather than simply being a bookend on a successful career, Renaissance became the first Lionel Richie album in a long time that left fans waiting for more. He met their call with the solid Just For You, released in May, 2004. His comeback became complete two years later with the top 10 hit “Call It Love” and the album Coming Home. He followed in in 2009 with an all-out assault on Just Go, a thoroughly modern but slightly less personal album where Richie teamed with hitmakers such as Ne-Yo, Akon and Tricky Stewart.
As 2012 arrived, Richie confounded the music world with Tuskegee, a collection of country duet covers of some of his biggest hits. It became the surprise release of the year, hitting #1 and selling over a million copies. That career renaissance continues to this day, as the always affable Richie continues to sell out tours around the world and is a television regular through his role on the rebooted American Idol.
Over the course of Lionel Richie’s solo career, the mixed feelings that critics and R&B “purists” have expressed have resulted in large part from Richie following his own muse – a consistent eagerness to please large numbers of fans through music that he says comes from “the other side,” whether it is a pop ballad, a funk jam or a homegrown country song. But, perhaps confounding those detractors, time has supported the breadth of his inclusive vision, as he has created a persona and a catalog of music that put him in rare air among contemporary artists. And as he continues in his late 70s to consistently sell out shows for four generations of fans, that’s something to celebrate..
by Chris Rizik
