Lionel Brockman Richie, Jr. was born on June 20th, 1949 in Tuskegee, Alabama (USA). He is a songwriter, musician, and singer. He has an estimated net worth of $200 million. In that place, he went to High School where he met some of the Commodores’ member whose were his musical partners, and they also became some of the most important bands of the Detroit record company Motown at the end of the sixties.
On that line up, he played the saxophone, sometimes he sang and wrote some of the songs, apart from marked a style with songs such as “Easy”, “Three Times a Lady” and “Still”, that were the most recognizable of the band.
Consolidation.
Even though The Commodores had a democratic structure, things started to change at the beginning of the eighties. Richie started to find his own talent through hits with songs sung by Kenny Rogers like “Lady” a song he composed. Next year, he reaffirmed that success with a duo he made with Diana Ross.
They both sang “Endless Love”. The song had 9 weeks in a road on the first place on the American charts. The song became the most important one in the history of Motown. Now mass media set their eyes on him. The band had a very dense atmosphere, and the logic path was to became solo, so he did at the end of 1981.
Solo career.
Immediately he started to work in his first record as solo singer for Motown. His first record was under his own name. In 1982, the record was released in 1982, and reached number 3 on sales that overpassed 4 million copies. The record had three songs among top of the charts, such as “Truly” a ballad that soon reached first place.
His second album: “Can’t Stop Slow Down” set him on the most popular charts with two number-one hits “All Night Long” and “Hello.” The album itself was number one. it sold more than 10 million copies, and won a Grammy Award as best album in 1984. His popularity was so big that he was called to sing “All Night Long” during the closing ceremony in the Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles 1984.
Collaborations.
In 1985, he joined Michael Jackson to compose the song “We are the world” whose purpose was to try to collect money to fight hunger in Africa. The idea came after the BBC put on the English screens the cruelty of hunger in Somalia and the English artists composed a Christmas song that mobilized global solidarity.
At the end of that year “Say You, Say Me” was number one on the charts. The song had been composed for a movie, but it was included in the album, instead of the film. The album was delayed until the middle of the 86, reason why the name of the album was changed to “Dancing On the Ceiling”. He still makes good albums and songs and sometimes he goes on tour.
