 -
6 years 2 months ago
- Posts: 709
|
How many of you remember the songs of Lionel Richie and his former group, The Commodores, which he'd been a member of from 1971 to 1981?
As a Commodore, initially he'd played saxophone, but eventually moved to the piano upon writing such hits as "Just to Be Close to You" (1976), "Easy" (1977; his first Top 10 hit), "Three Times a Lady" (1978; his first #1) and "Still" (1979; another #1). Outside of The Commodores, he wrote "Lady" for country superstar Kenny Rogers (the song hit #1 in late 1980, and Lionel even contributed piano and backing vocals), and duetted with fellow Motown recording artist Diana Ross (originally of The Supremes, a group she led during the '60s and early '70s) on the 1981 #1 single "Endless Love" (from the soundtrack of the Brooke Shields-featured film bearing the same name).
Lionel's solo career took off in 1982, in which he released his debut self-titled album that spawned the #1 hit "Truly," as well as other Top 10 hits like "My Love" (#5) and "You Are" (#4). 1983 would see the release of his Diamond (read: over 10 million units sold) album Can't Slow Down, which contained two #1 hits in the singles "All Night Long (All Night)" and "Hello."
In early 1985, Lionel co-wrote with Michael Jackson the charity single "We Are the World," recorded by the United Support of Artists for Africa, a collective of 45 musicians (mainly from the U.S.A., with one Canadian and one Irishman; the latter's Band-Aid, a British collective, had inspired U.S.A. for Africa).
The single helped raise funds for ending the 1984-85 famine and drought in Ethiopia. Later in 1985, Lionel released the #1 single "Say You, Say Me" which was used in the soundtrack for that year's film White Nights, which starred Gregory Hines and Mikhail Baryshnikov. Between 1978-85, he had written a string of nine #1 hits, which had broken records set by the likes of Cole Porter and Paul McCartney.
1986 would see the release of Lionel's last #1 album to date, Dancing on the Ceiling, in which the single of the same name was accompanied by a hilariously funny music video directed by film legend Stanley Donen. In 1992, Lionel released his first anthology album, Back to Front which had three new songs tagged onto the beginning of it, of which two were co-written with his now ex-wife, Brenda Harvey, whose songwriting partnership traced its lineage to Lionel's 1982 debut solo album.
~Ben
|
