The decade of the ’60s saw the evolution of rock music and the start of an album era in North America and Europe.Towards the end of the ’60s, rock music produced singers who wrote and performed their own work. The ’60s saw the rise of soul music and funk, while rhythm and blues remained popular.Lionel Richie started his journey at that time. Awarded with prestigious honors like Kennedy Center Honoree in 2017, Musicares Person of the year in 2016, Golden Globe, Songwriters Hall of Fame (1994), four Grammy Awards, and an Oscar, Lionel is famous for his soulful love ballads and smooth songs. Born as Lionel Brockman Richie Jr. on June 20, 1949, in Tuskegee, Alabama, Lionel Richie played many roles as a record producer, singer, songwriter, and musician.Popular genres for the singer include rhythm and blues (R&B), ballads, country music, pop, and hip hop. All the mentioned genres are related to African-American tools of expression. A versatile person, Lionel Richie is interested in many areas of art, design, and charity. He has millions of admirers and fans. Let us have a glimpse of his songs, career, family, and much more about this legend.Want to know more about music? Refer to our other articles on Adam Levine facts and Blake Shelton facts here on Kidadl.Fun Facts About Lionel RichieLet us glimpse into the simple life of Lionel Richie and discover more about him. Many songs Richie wrote and performed topped the lists of Billboard, Rhythm and Blues, and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), to name a few. Lionel Richie played tennis and graduated with an economics degree from Tuskegee Institute, accepting a scholarship as a tennis star. He wanted to be a priest in the Episcopal church but realized he wasn’t ‘priest material’ and decided to pursue music instead.Lionel Richie started his music career by joining the campus band, the Mystics, as a composer, saxophonist, and sometimes singer. The Mystics were later named the Commodores. The Tuskegee native was timid and had stage fright; the band members had to persuade him to be the lead singer. Richie dropped out of college, and his father was unhappy about it. The Commodores joined The Jackson 5 as a support act, which earned them more deals. Richie loves writing ballad songs; the lyrics of ‘Sail on and Easy like a Sunday morning’ established him as a songwriter. During a bathroom break, Lionel wrote ‘Lady for Kenny Rogers’ during a bathroom break. Dancing on the Ceiling, a record-breaker, was an expensive video of the time in which we can see Richie and his friends dancing dangling from the ceiling. In collaboration with Michael Jackson, the song ‘We Are the World’ was written only a few hours before it was recorded, and it sold over 20 million copies. In 1987, he took a break from the public eye for 10 years to look after his ailing father. Richie became Nelson Mandela’s stylist when he visited the US in the ’90s. In Gulf countries, too, he rose to fame, and Lionel Richie’s songs were regularly played on the local radio in Baghdad.A sensitive judge on American Idol, he was a teary mess after the enthralling audition of blind singer Shay. Richie says that he can’t read or write music. The singer-songwriter loves flowers and spends time on them; his favorite is the bougainvillea. A genuine art collector, he spends a fortune on expensive art objects and loves all things related to designing, going through books and art galleries. Richie launched Lionel Richie Home in 2016, selling home decor, glassware, and decorative dinnerware. Richie loves sweets and is a devotee of carrot cakes and oatmeal cookies. Richie also loves seafood a lot.Facts About Lionel Richie’s CareerLionel Richie’s musical career spans from the late ’60s to the early ’80s. He was part of a band, a solo artist, and he combined with the top singers of his time for a cause. The Commodores signed a contract with Atlantic Records and later with Motown Records. After being a support act for The Jackson 5, the Commodores became very popular. Lionel Richie was a saxophonist and later sang, and Richie wrote lyrics for the band and later for other singers. In the early ’80s, Richie embarked on a solo career with his album, entitled ‘Lionel Richie’ sold over 4 million copies of his album, with the three-hit songs, ‘Truly, My Love’, and ‘You Are’, along with the solo albums, ‘Can’t Slow down’ and ‘Dancing on the Ceiling’. Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson together wrote ‘We are the World". Columbia Records recorded the song in which various well-known singers came together to raise funds for Africa’s famine, which became yet another world hit in 1985. Richie raised $3.1 million for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, motivated by his grandmother, who lived to 103. Drained out with two decades of performance and recordings, in 1987, Richie took a hiatus to return in 1992; Richie returned with a compilation of his all-time hits named ‘Back to Front’ and it is one of the best he has released. In 2013, he launched a tour called ‘All the Hits All Night Long’. Richie is under the work of a museum for which he brought the family home and surrounding lands in Tuskegee.Richie is the Chairman and Global Ambassador for the Prince of Wales Trust, formed by Prince Charles to transform lives and achieve young people’s dreams, and Richie raised $10 million for patients with cognitive diseases. Richie became the high-profile star to serve as a judge alongside Luke Bryan and Katy Perry on ‘American Idol’, one of the most popular talent hunt shows, for three seasons on American Broadcasting Company (ABC).Facts About Lionel Richie’s SongsWhile in the Commodores, Richie wrote and sang Easy, Three Times a Lady, and Still. Richie co-authored the funk song ‘Brick House’. ‘Happy People’ is the first written song he co-authored, which brought him commercial success. Richie accepted a commission for songs written for other singers. Lionel Richie’s most famous song is ‘Endless Love’, a duet. Richie wrote the timeless classic and performed it with Diana Ross, intending it for a movie of the same name. The hit topped the pop chart in several parts of the world and is also one of Motown’s biggest hits. Following this, Lionel wrote the breakup ballad song ‘Sail On’ as he left the Commodores to pursue a solo career. The three-hit songs, ‘Truly’, ‘You Are’, and ‘My Love’, were included in the solo album by Lionel Richie. ‘Truly’ earned him a Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal. ‘Can’t Slow Down’ in 1983 made him a pop phenomenon, catapulting him to international fame, selling 20 million copies, and bagging him a Grammy Award for Album of the Year. This album also included another compelling hit ballad song, ‘All Night Long’. Richie performed at the closing ceremony of the Summer Olympic Games in 1984 in Los Angeles. The second solo album of ‘Can’t Slow Down’, released in 1984, included hits like ‘Hello’, ‘Stuck on You’, ‘Running with the Night’, and ‘Penny Lover’ that Richie wrote and sang. In 1985, Richie wrote and gave a performance for ‘Say you, Say me’ that won an Academy Award and continued in the top one position for three weeks in the US. The next album was ‘Dancing on the Ceiling’ in 1986, and the song ‘Say you, Say me’ was included in it, for which Lionel Richie received an Academy Award for Original Song. The song ‘Dancing on the Ceiling’ in that album was also a quick sell-out, and the RIAA certified it as double platinum. Immediately after this, he took a break at the height of his career.After a personal break in 1996, he recorded ‘Louder Than Words’ and ‘Time’ that were not commercially successful. Richie’s latest albums, ‘Renaissance’ and ‘Just For You’, saw success in Europe. Richie performed at Michael Jackson’s memorial, ‘Jesus is Love’. On March 26, 2012, the album ‘Tuskegee’ included 13 of his greatest hits remade with different artists, released in the country music genre. The album topped Billboard’s Top 200 and was one of the top-selling albums. With his stardom, Richie could raise funds for many charitable causes. The famine relief song, popularly known as ‘We Are the World’ combined with Michael Jackson, is the most famous.Facts About Lionel Richie’s FamilyBorn into a musical family, his mother a teacher, father a US Army system Analyst, Richie learned the basics and classical music tradition from his grandmother, a pianist. Lionel Richie spent his younger days at Tuskegee Institute, across from his grandfather’s house. His uncle, a jazz musician, gave him a saxophone, which he used throughout his initial years in the Commodores. Richie started singing gospel songs because he wanted to become a priest. When he was at Tuskegee Institute, he joined the campus band, the Mystics, later named the Commodores. He moved on to solo, and the rest is history.The first Billboard hit, ‘Three Times a Lady’, which Lionel Richie wrote himself, was inspired by the 37th wedding anniversary of his parents. In 1975, Richie married his college love, Brenda Harvey, and the couple adopted Nicole Camile Escavado (Nicole Richie) when she was only nine years old. Nicole Richie was adopted because her biological parents, Richie’s friends, could not provide for her. It was about Nicole, ’the Ballerina Girl’ was written. Even when the couple divorced in 1993, they were both very humane towards her, as she later said. Brenda was very angry with Richie after discovering his relationship with Diane Alexander, and they parted ways. Richie married Diane Alexander on December 5, 1995, and they have a son, Miles Brockman, and a daughter, Sofia Richie. Richie and Diana divorced in 2004. Lionel Richie, now a 72-year-old, shows no signs of slowing down with his busy schedule with ABC, re-recording songs, compiling them, and touring with his soul music.Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly facts for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for 131 Lionel Richie facts: songs, career, family and much more, then why not take a look at Adele facts or Bruno Mars facts.
The decade of the ’60s saw the evolution of rock music and the start of an album era in North America and Europe.
