When 2012 started, if somebody would have predicted that Lionel Richie, a legacy act who barely charted with his last album, would have the #2 album of the first half of the year, behind only Adele’s 21, they likely would have been put in a rubber room. But that’s just what has happened. Tuskegee, Richie’s enjoyable country duets album with the likes of Shania Twain, Tim McGraw, Darius Rucker and a host of others, has been hanging around the top of the charts since its release at the end of March. And Richie’s omnipresence on television over the past few months, combined with his current tour with Jimmy Buffett, is putting him in front of even more fans.
Expect this album to not only boost the career of the 62 year old Richie, but to become a strategic and marketing template for other aging singers looking to find their audience again, much as Michael McDonald’s Motown album did during the last decade. Congratulations to Lionel.
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