Lionel Richie
Lionel Richie
Lionel Brockman Richie, Jr.is an American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer and actor. Beginning in 1968, he was a member of the musical group Commodores signed to Motown Records. Richie made his solo debut in 1982 with the album Lionel Richie and the number-one hit "Truly". He has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the world's best-selling artists of all time...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionR&B Singer
Date of Birth20 June 1949
CityTuskegee, AL
CountryUnited States of America
Lionel Richie quotes about
Growing up with country, R&B, gospel, and classical music from my grandmother and pop, Tuskegee was the perfect melting pot for my influences as a writer.
By growing up in Alabama, I had a melting pot of the whole pie: R&B, gospel, country.
I think the whole world is dying to hear someone say, 'I love you.' I think that if I can leave the legacy of love and passion in the world, then I think I've done my job in a world that's getting colder and colder by the day.
No one can deny, this love I have inside, and I'll give it all to you, my endless love.
Today we've learned to celebrate mediocrity. Back in the day we had creative artists; today we have created artists.
Simplicity is the key to what I do.
All artists are egotistical maniacs with inferiority complexes.
I just had to find all my friends that used to be in the business. As I say, the music business didn't die, it just moved to Nashville.
I always like to challenge myself. I never want to be put into a box.
I grew up with the Grand Ole Opry, Dottie West, Conway Twitty, Buck Owens... not realizing it was influencing me as much as it was.
It was very interesting in my world, because I grew up as a fan and I did not know that there was a thing called R&B, pop, country, classical - I just knew that I loved music.
I knew I was going to do a country album one day. But I was just trying to figure out for the life of me, what we were going to do to make it different, unique.
When I was growing up, music was music and there were no genres. We didn't look at it as country music. Popular music in Tuskegee was country music. So I didn't know it in categories. It was the radio.
I want to let everybody know that I'm from there, and country is Tuskegee. Or should I say rather, my country is Tuskegee. I was born and raised there, it's not just someplace I passed through one day.