Lionel Richie

Singer

• Born: June 20, 1949
• Birthplace: Tuskegee, Alabama

Rhythm-and-blues singer and songwriter

An award-winning singer and songwriter, both with the group the Commodores and as a solo artist, Richie helped define popular music from the 1980s on.

Areas of achievement: Music: crossover; Music: production; Music: rhythm and blues

Early Life

Lionel Brockman Richie, Jr., was born on June 20, 1949, to Lionel B. Richie, Sr., a US Army systems analyst, and Alberta Foster Richie, an educator. He grew up on the campus of Tuskegee Institute, at the home of his grandparents. His grandmother Adelaide Towson Foster, a Fisk University graduate, began her career as a music instructor at Tuskegee, the school founded by family friend Booker T. Washington. She was a classical pianist and attempted to teach Richie how to play. However, she quickly realized that Richie was playing by ear instead of learning to read music. When she tried to introduce him to classical music, he ignored it and made up his own songs. Growing up, Richie was influenced by different types of music: classical, black pop, gospel, and country. All would become part of the music he later wrote.

When his parents moved to Joliet, Illinois, Richie enrolled in the local high school but returned to Tuskegee Institute for college, intending to study to become an Episcopal minister. Although he could not yet play the saxophone that his Uncle Bertram, a big band horn man, had given him, Richie brought the instrument to college. The saxophone attracted the attention of two other freshmen who were hoping to start a band. Their initial purpose simply was to meet girls.

Richie’s lack of skill with the saxophone did not prevent them from entering a talent contest, in which the group was billed as the Mighty Mystics. They soon merged with the Jays, and in 1968, the group became the Commodores. Richie decided to major in economics with an accounting minor. While continuing their studies, the Commodores worked weekends and summers, building a reputation. By the summer of 1968, with their funky, danceable sound, they were the hottest group in Montgomery, Alabama. They went to New York and played at different venues, including Small’s Paradise in Harlem and the Cheetah in Manhattan. There they met Suzanne DePasse, a booking agent who later became a vice president at Motown Records. DePasse got them an audition as opening act for the Jackson Five’s 1971 European tour. Despite tough competition, the Commodores joined the tour and, in 1972, signed a record contract with Motown.

For the next two years, the band cut a series of unsuccessful singles while continuing to open for the Jackson Five and other groups. Richie graduated from Tuskegee in 1974, the year of the Commodores’ first album, Machine Gun. In 1975, he married Brenda Harvey; they would adopt a daughter, Nicole, and Harvey not only cowrote songs with Richie but also served as his production assistant.

The group began to grow in popularity, and by 1976, the Commodores had recorded three gold albums and one that achieved platinum status. Richie, in addition to his duties as lead singer, saxophonist, and pianist, was developing into a songwriter. His song "Sweet Love," a ballad, introduced a new sound to the Commodores that began attracting a wider audience. In 1978, his song "Three Times a Lady," a tribute to Richie’s mother, grandmother, and wife, went from the top of the soul charts to the top of the country and pop charts and was number one in five countries. The Commodores were ranked the number-one rhythm and blues group by Billboard and in 1979 signed a new, seven-year, $20 million contract with Motown.

Life’s Work

When Richie wrote and produced "Lady" for Kenny Rogers in 1980, he launched his solo career. The song was number one for six weeks, sold sixteen million copies, and would later be listed at number forty-seven on Billboard’s All Time Top 100. Richie wrote four more songs for Rogers’s album Share Your Love (1981) and continued to work with the Commodores. He also wrote and sang, with Diana Ross, "Endless Love," which was used in the 1981 film of the same title and nominated for an Academy Award.

Richie left the Commodores in 1982 to focus on his solo career. The album Lionel Richie (1982) was a success, and the single "Truly" topped the charts and won Richie his first Grammy Award for Best Male Vocalist. A second successful album, Can’t Slow Down (1983), was on the charts for fifty-two weeks. The single "All Night Long" was a major hit. The album won a Grammy for Album of the Year, was the best-selling release in Motown history, and launched Richie’s first tour as a solo artist. What gained Richie even more popularity was the recording of "We Are the World," which he cowrote with Michael Jackson in 1985 and recorded with an all-star group of artists. The song, intended to raise money for famine relief in Africa, was an international smash hit. It raised millions of dollars and earned five Grammy Awards. Richie continued his successful run with an Academy Award and a Golden Globe in 1986 for his original song "Say You, Say Me" from the film White Nights (1985).

Richie continued his success with the album Dancing on the Ceiling (1986), but then went though a period in which he was virtually absent from the music scene and the public eye. During the 1990s Richie struggled professionally and personally: his father and role model died in 1990, he went through a divorce in 1993, and he had recurring throat problems. In 1996, after an almost-ten-year hiatus from recording, he released the critically acclaimed album Louder than Words, sparking a comeback. That was followed in 1998 by Time. He married clothing designer Diane Alexander on December 21, 1996; they went on to have two children before divorcing in 2003.

In March, 2001, Richie released his eighth solo album, Renaissance. His 2006 album Coming Home was a turning point in a career that had once again appeared to stagnate. It was his most popular album in a decade, accompanied by headlines proclaiming his unusual popularity in several Arab countries. Richie promoted the release with a series of concerts across the United States, and the single "I Call It Love" hit number one on the charts. He released the albums Sounds of the Season in 2006 and Just Go in 2009. In 2012 he explored new musical territory with an album of country versions of his songs, Tuskegee, which featured collaborations with well-known country stars. It proved a critical and commercial success, even reaching number one on the charts. Richie continued touring extensively into the 2010s, including the Hello Tour, a thirty-three date tour across North America during the summer of 2019.

In addition to performing and songwriting, Richie hosted a number of music events, including the American Music Awards in 1984 and 1985, making him one of the first African Americans to host an awards show. He also ventured into acting. He appeared in the feature film The Preacher’s Wife (1996), starring Denzel Washington and Whitney Houston, and the television dramas Felicity and The Young and the Restless. Starting in 2018 he joined Katy Perry and Luke Bryan as a judge on the television series, American Idol, a vocal competition which has been on the air since 2002.

Over the years, Richie also became involved with various charities. He received an Award for Excellence from the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) for his support of education for African Americans and actively aided the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. In 2022, he was inducted into the Black Music and Entertainment Walk of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The same year, he received the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, awarded by the Library of Congress.

Significance

Richie had a long and hugely successful career in the music business and recorded many classic rhythm-and-blues ballads. By 2021 he had sold more than 125 million albums and won a number of awards, including four Grammys, sixteen American Music Awards, an Academy Award, and a Golden Globe. He was also a recipient of numerous lifetime achievement awards, inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Bibliography

"Biography." Lionel Richie. Lionel Richie, 2016. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.

Davis, Sharon. Lionel Richie: Hello. Oakville: Equinox, 2009. Print.

Galante Block, Debbie. "Flying Solo for Twenty Years." Billboard 2 Mar. 2002: 28–31. Print.

Huey, Steve. "Lionel Richie: Biography." AllMusic. AllMusic, 2016. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.

Jefferies, Mark. "Lionel Richie on Family, Racism, Romance, His Daughter Nicole and Meeting Nelson Mandela." Mirror. MGN, 3 Sept. 2015. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.

Richie, Lionel. "Lionel: The Music Man." People 18 Sept. 2006: 30. Print.

Whitaker, Charles. "Superstar Copes with Crossover Problems." Ebony 42.4 (1987): 135. Print.