LIONEL Richie suggests that his life has entailed unbelievable twists and turns, so much so that he even toyed with naming Truly, his newly-released memoir, Lies, Lies and Mo’ Lies: The True Life Story of Lionel Richie.
Among snippets of unbelievables in his almost four score innings on planet Earth which have unfolded á la Tinseltown scripts are: him learning, by chance in 1977, that a crush of his he had last seen pending their childhood, was one of the young girls who perished in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing by the Ku Klux Klan.
Him learning, pending the 1970s, of the news of the demise of a schoolteacher girlfriend from Harlem he had lost contact with, from a Black Panthers and police shoot-out in Los Angeles. Manoeuvering a nascent music career with his band, the Commodores – whilst the spectre of the Vietnam War draft lottery (which would account for the band’s founding member) hovered over him.
Being tasked, in 1990, with assisting an American reception committee for Nelson Mandela in the purchasing of clothes the South African leader would wear to media appearances – with Madiba remarking: “Young man, I want to thank you for your lyrics and your music. Your songs got me through many years while I was in prison.”
Fortuitously playing the role of a unifier to polarized Arabic and Israeli couples who simultaneously spotted Richie at a holiday resort and confided to him that they got married to his song Truly – culminating in them exchanging banter; and being approached, in 2005, by a Jordanian soldier in the desert who then proceeded to sing for him: “Hello . . . Is it me you’re looking for?”
Still being en vogue enough to attract a crowd of some 200 000 folks to hear him sing at the Glastonbury Festival in England, in 2015 – 31 years after having being assigned to deliver a speech supposed to had been read out by President Ronald Reagan, and having sang All Night Long at the closing ceremony of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics for a global audience of 2 billion people.
Muhammad Ali summoning him to his house and pranking him to play him a made-up song titled, Three Times a Champion – with the boxer thereafter informing him that: “We’re pretty, but you ain’t as pretty as me.”
Him being fondly referred to as “the kid” by Rat Pack icons, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin at Beverly Hills’ exclusive Polo Lounge; and the touring Commodores being protected by Frank Lucas, the godfather of Harlem who was portrayed by Denzel Washington in the movie, American Gangster.
Compelling an automobile showroom to close to other clients whilst purchasing Mercedes and a Jaguar, as Christmas gifts for the Commodores and their manager.
Growing up on the Tuskegee Institute campus in an abode originally owned and deeded to his grandparents by Booker T. Washington (the founder of the university), where his grandmother taught him the piano – and which later served as the Commodores’ base. (Richie writes that he’d regularly see the fabled Tuskegee Airmen walking across campus – none the wiser that they were heroes.)
Bypassing the phases of harbouring designs on becoming a priest and subsequently, a tennis pro – when Arthur Ashe, who’d then became the first African American player to win the US Open, informed him, at 19: “You’re too old.”
Being recruited in his teens for the then new band, the Commodores and signing to Berry Gordy’s Motown record label whilst still a college student at Tuskegee Institute – where he dropped out and ultimately received a degree and an honorary doctorate, on the same day.
Richie’s first time encounter with a then 12-year-old Michael Jackson (from whom he was nine years apart in age) pending a period when the Commodores occupied second fiddle to the Jackson 5 at concerts – and his impressions of their 39-year relationship which culminated in their co-writing of the 1985 song, We Are the World.
Him progressing from being unable to read or write music, to becoming an award winning and in-demand songwriter who initially figured out songwriting through an ‘Other Side’ inspirational process – whilst surrounded by megastars such as Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, et al., at the Motown studios.
The Commodores polishing their craft at the Harlem nightclub Smalls Paradise where they became the resident band and had James Brown one evening giving them a compliment; misunderstanding of etiquette by members of the band which had them drinking water from a bowl meant for washing hands on a cruise ship en route to the French Riviera for a performance.
Courting first wife Brenda Harvey over a milkshake – and consequences of the fissure of their marriage; driving new flame – and subsequently second wife Diane Alexander (who’d featured as a dancer in his LA Olympics performance) – home in a black Ferrari whilst being tailed by a trio of nosy police cars; and writing Ballerina Girl for adopted daughter Nicole.
How Richie was requested to compose the song for the movie Endless Love – and how the Academy and Golden Globe Award-winning Song of the Year, Say You, Say Me, from the movie White Nights, came about.
Richie’s insights on the dynamics of what determines whether a song/music makes it or breaks it – to describing his working relationships with industry gatekeepers such as DJs, radio stations, et cetera.
His revelation of the ‘Blue Period’ of his life when he realized that the five Ds (divorce, disease, disaster, death and disgrace) his dad had alluded to would test his resolve – with him purposing within himself to counter them through defiance.
Candid and mirth-filled recollections of a conduit of the soundtracks of multitudes’ lifetimes, renowned for his bonhomie – with more than 125 million albums sold worldwide, four Grammy Awards, 18 American Music Awards and induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
A trade paperback, Truly, is published by HarperCollins UK and distributed in South Africa by Jonathan Ball Publishers.
Available at leading bookstores countrywide, it retails for R440.
