Lionel Richie

Lionel Brockman Richie Jr born June 20 1949 is an American singer songwriter record producer and television personality He rose to fame in the 1970s as a songwriter and the colead singer of the Motown group Commodores writing and recording the hit singles Easy Sail On Three Times a Lady and Still with the group before his departure In 1980 he wrote and produced the US Billboard Hot 100 number one single Lady for Kenny Rogers In 1981 Richie wrote and produced the single Endless Love which he recorded as a duet with Diana Ross it remains among the top 20 bestselling singles of all time and the biggest career hit for both artists In 1982 he officially launched his solo career with the album Lionel Richie which sold over four million copies and spawned the singles You Are My Love and the number one single Truly Richies second album Cant Slow Down 1983 reached number one on the US Billboard 200 chart and sold over 20 million copies worldwide becoming one of the bestselling albums of all time and spawned the number one singles All Night Long All Night and Hello He then cowrote the 1985 charity single We Are the World with Michael Jackson which sold over 20 million copies His third album Dancing on the Ceiling 1986 spawned the number one single Say You Say Me from the 1985 film White Nights and the No 2 hit title track From 1986 to 1996 Richie took a break from recording he has since then released seven studio albums He has joined the singing competition American Idol to serve as a judge starting from its sixteenth season 2018 to present During his solo career Richie became one of the most successful balladeers of the 1980s and has sold over 100 million records worldwide making him one of the worlds bestselling artists of all time He has won four Grammy Awards including Song of the Year for We Are the World and Album of the Year for Cant Slow Down Endless Love was nominated for an Academy Award while Say You Say Me won both the Academy Award and the Golden Globe award for Best Original Song In 2016 Richie received the Songwriters Hall of Fames highest honor the Johnny Mercer Award In 2022 he received the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song by the Library of Congress as well as the American Music Awards Icon Award He was also inducted into Black Music Entertainment Walk of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022 Richie was born on June 20 1949 in Tuskegee Alabama the son of Lionel Brockman Richie 19151990 a US Army systems analyst and Alberta R Foster 19172001 a teacher and school principal His grandmother Adelaide Mary Brown was a pianist who played classical music On March 4 2011 he appeared on NBCs Who Do You Think You Are which found out that his maternal greatgrandfather was the national leader of an early Black American fraternal organization Notably J Louis Brown was Principal organizer and Supreme Grand Archon of the Knights of Wise Men a fraternal organization for black men in the postCivil War period Formed in Nashville in 1879 it was a fraternal insurance and burial benefit society as were so many others during the period Source Article Lionel Richie from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA 30