Lionel Richie: The Smooth Star Behind Hello and All Night

Tuskegee: Growing Up on a College Campus in Alabama

Lionel Brockman Richie Jr. was born on 20 June 1949 in Tuskegee, Alabama, and he grew up on the campus of the Tuskegee Institute, now Tuskegee University, where his family lived and worked, a setting that shaped him more than any single event of his childhood. His grandmother, Adelaide Mary Brown, had worked for Booker T. Washington, the founder of the institute, and his parents, Lionel Sr. and Alberta, were both connected to the school, his father a systems analyst for the US Army and his mother a school principal, so the house was full of education, discipline and Black history. Tuskegee in the 1950s and 1960s was a proud, self-contained Black community, and Lionel grew up inside it, attending school on campus, playing tennis, which he was good enough at to earn a scholarship, and singing in the church choir, where his voice first found an audience.

He enrolled at Tuskegee Institute to study economics, and he was a talented tennis player, but music kept pulling him away from the classroom, and in 1968 he joined a group of fellow students who called themselves the Commodores, after a name picked at random from a dictionary. The band played soul and funk at campus parties and local clubs, and Lionel, who played saxophone and sang, became one of its leaders, learning to write songs, to arrange harmonies and to hold a stage, skills that would carry him for the next fifty years. Tuskegee gave him something else as well: a confidence that came from growing up in a place where Black achievement was normal, not exceptional, and that confidence, quiet rather than loud, stayed with him through every change in his career.

The Alabama of his childhood was the Alabama of segregation, and Lionel has spoken about the contrast between the safety of the Tuskegee campus and the racism outside it, a contrast that taught him to be careful, polite and determined, qualities that later became his public image. He was not a rebel in the obvious sense; he was a young man who learned to move through a divided world with grace, and that grace, which some mistook for softness, was in fact a strategy, one that let him work in rooms where other Black artists were not welcome. Music was his way through, and the Commodores were his vehicle, a band of college friends who believed, correctly, that they could make it out of Alabama and onto the national stage.

The Commodores: From Campus Band to Motown Stars

The Commodores signed to Motown in 1972, and for the first years they were a funk band, opening for the Jackson 5 and building a reputation as a tight, energetic live act, with hits like Machine Gun, an instrumental, and Brick House, a funk anthem with a bassline that still fills dance floors. Lionel wrote the band’s ballads, and those ballads, Easy in 1977 and Three Times a Lady in 1978, a song he wrote for his father and his mother, changed the band’s direction, because they were bigger hits than the funk songs and they showed that Lionel could write a love song that crossed over to pop radio. Three Times a Lady reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, and it made the Commodores a different kind of band, one that could play both a funk festival and a middle-of-the-road radio station, and Lionel, who had started as the saxophonist, became the face of the group.

Still, released in 1979, was another number-one ballad, and by the early 1980s the Commodores were one of Motown’s biggest acts, but the tension inside the band was growing, because Lionel’s songs were the hits and his ambitions were pulling him towards a solo career. He wrote Lady for Kenny Rogers in 1980, a number-one hit that showed he could write for other singers as well as for himself, and he co-wrote Endless Love with Diana Ross, a duet that spent nine weeks at number one in 1981 and became one of the best-selling singles of all time. The success of those songs made the decision for him: he could have a career outside the band, and in 1982 he left the Commodores, amicably, to record on his own, a move that Motown supported because it believed in him as a solo star.

The Commodores years taught Lionel everything about the music business: how to write a hit, how to arrange a record, how to tour, how to handle a record company, and how to keep a band together through success and disagreement. He has always spoken warmly about the band, and the members have reunited on occasion, but the solo career was the right move, because his voice, a warm, smooth tenor, and his songwriting, which mixed soul, pop and country, were too broad for a funk band to contain. The years on the road with the Commodores also gave him a stamina and a professionalism that would serve him well, because he learned to perform every night, to treat the audience with respect, and to never let a bad night show.

Going Solo: Truly, All Night Long and Hello

His debut solo album, Lionel Richie, released in October 1982, produced the number-one hit Truly, a piano ballad that announced his solo sound immediately: smooth, romantic and unmistakably his, and the album sold millions and established him as a star in his own right. The second album, Can’t Slow Down, released in October 1983, was bigger still, with All Night Long (All Night), a joyful, Caribbean-flavoured song with a singalong chorus, Hello, a ballad whose video, featuring a blind student sculpting Lionel’s face, became one of the most famous music videos of the decade, and Stuck on You, a country-flavoured song that showed his range. Can’t Slow Down won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1985, and it spent time at number one on the album chart, making Lionel one of the biggest stars in the world.

Hello deserves a special mention, because it is the song that defines Lionel Richie for most people: a slow, emotional ballad about longing, with a melody that is simple enough to sing and a vocal that is warm enough to believe, and the video, directed by Bob Giraldi, told a small, tender story that made the song even more memorable. All Night Long was its opposite, a party song with a nonsense chorus, Lionel, Lionel, and a video full of dancing in the streets, and the contrast between the two songs showed his range as a songwriter, able to write both a tearjerker and a celebration. The album also included Penny Lover and Running with the Night, and it sold more than ten million copies in the United States alone, a figure that puts it among the best-selling albums of the 1980s.

His third solo album, Dancing on the Ceiling, released in 1986, produced the hits Say You, Say Me, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for the film White Nights, and the title track, a playful song whose video featured Lionel dancing on a ceiling, and it kept him at the top of the charts. He was, by then, one of the most successful songwriters in the world, with a run of hits that few artists have matched, and his songs were being covered by country singers, pop singers and jazz musicians, a sign that the writing itself, not just the performance, was strong. The mid-1980s were the peak of his fame, and he used it carefully, choosing his projects, avoiding scandal, and building a reputation as a reliable, professional star.

Can’t Slow Down, We Are the World and the Biggest Years

In 1985 Lionel co-wrote We Are the World with Michael Jackson, a charity single recorded by USA for Africa, featuring dozens of the biggest stars in American music, from Stevie Wonder to Bruce Springsteen, and it became one of the best-selling singles of all time, raising tens of millions of dollars for famine relief in Africa. The song’s writing was a collaboration, with Lionel and Michael working together at his house, and its recording, on a single night in January 1985 after the American Music Awards, was a moment of unity in a competitive industry, with Lionel helping to organise the session and to keep the many egos in the room working together. He has said that the experience taught him how much music could do beyond entertainment, and the song remains one of the proudest achievements of his career, a fact he mentions whenever he talks about the 1980s.

The same year he performed at the closing ceremony of the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984, singing All Night Long to a stadium full of people, a performance that was broadcast around the world and that cemented his image as a warm, welcoming star, and he closed the 1984 Olympic Games with a party atmosphere that suited the song perfectly. He won four Grammy Awards in total, including Album of the Year for Can’t Slow Down, and he was nominated many more times, and his songs were everywhere, on radio, in films, at weddings, a ubiquity that made him one of the defining voices of the decade. The success was not just commercial: his songwriting, with its clear melodies and honest lyrics, was respected by other writers, and he was invited to write for other artists, a sign of the esteem in which he was held.

By the late 1980s, however, Lionel was tired, and his personal life was difficult: his father was ill, and he wanted to spend time with him, and his marriage to Brenda Harvey, whom he had married in 1975, was ending, and he decided to step back from recording and touring. He released no new album of original material for a decade, a break that would have ended most careers, but his songs were so well known that he never disappeared from the radio, and when he returned, the audience was still there. The break also protected him: he avoided the overexposure that damaged other 1980s stars, and he came back in the 1990s as a respected veteran rather than a faded hitmaker.

The Long Quiet: Loss, Breaks and a Slower Return

Louder Than Words, released in 1996, was his return, and it produced the hit Ordinary Girl and showed that his voice had lost none of its warmth, although the musical landscape had changed around him, with hip-hop and grunge dominating the charts. Time, released in 1998, and Renaissance, released in 2000, continued the comeback, with the latter including Angel, a song that became a hit in Europe, and he toured steadily, playing to audiences who knew every word of his old songs and were happy to hear the new ones as well. He also began to appear on television, as a guest and as a mentor, and he remarried, to Diane Alexander in 1995, with whom he had two children, Miles and Sofia, before divorcing in 2004.

Coming Home, released in 2006, was a more successful return, reaching the top ten on the album chart and producing the single I Call It Love, and it showed that Lionel could still make a contemporary R&B record without losing his identity. He toured the world behind it, and he began to be recognised as a legacy artist, a singer whose songs had become part of the culture, played at weddings, in films and on radio stations that had not existed when he recorded them. He also became a father figure to his adopted daughter, Nicole Richie, who had come to live with the family as a child and whom he and Brenda adopted, and Nicole’s own fame, through the television show The Simple Life, brought Lionel a new, younger audience who knew him first as her father.

The 2000s were also the years when Lionel’s reputation as a live performer grew, because his concerts, which mixed his Commodores hits, his solo hits and his songs for other artists, were warm, funny and generous, with Lionel telling stories between songs and inviting the audience to sing along. He played festivals, arenas and theatres, and he was welcomed everywhere, from Las Vegas to London, because his songs were known across generations and his stage manner, relaxed and charming, made a large room feel small. The break of the late 1980s, which had seemed like a risk at the time, turned out to be a gift, because it left him with the energy and the enthusiasm to enjoy the second half of his career.

Tuskegee, American Idol and a Second Act in Country

Tuskegee, released in March 2012, was his most successful album in decades, and it was built on a simple idea: re-recording his greatest hits as country duets, with singers like Shania Twain, Blake Shelton, Kenny Chesney and Willie Nelson, and the album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, his first chart-topping album since the 1980s. The idea worked because his songs, especially Stuck on You and Easy, had always had a country feeling, and the duets revealed the songwriting underneath the pop production, and the country audience, which had always liked him, embraced the record. Tuskegee won awards, sold well and gave Lionel a new audience, and it showed that a veteran artist could reinvent himself without pretending to be young, a lesson that many of his contemporaries have since followed.

In 2018 he joined American Idol as a judge, alongside Katy Perry and Luke Bryan, and the show gave him a weekly television presence and a new generation of fans, who knew him first as the kind, funny judge who encouraged young singers and told stories about the Commodores and the 1980s. His judging style, warm and constructive, was a contrast to the harsher judges of earlier talent shows, and it suited him, because he had spent his life encouraging other singers and writing songs for them. He stayed with the show for many seasons, and it became a central part of his later career, keeping him in the public eye and introducing his music to viewers who had never heard it before.

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022, a recognition that had been a long time coming, and he performed at the ceremony with a set that mixed his Commodores and solo hits, a reminder of the breadth of his catalogue. He has also been honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and he has performed at royal events, including the coronation concert for King Charles III in 2023, where he sang All Night Long to a crowd at Windsor Castle. These honours, late in his career, reflect a reputation that has only grown with time, as the songs have proved their durability and the man behind them has proved his staying power.

Family, Honours and the Smooth Star’s Legacy

Lionel Richie’s family has been a central part of his public life, and he has spoken often about his children: Nicole, the adopted daughter who became a television star; Miles, who has worked as a model and a musician; and Sofia, who has built a career as a model and an influencer, and he has described himself as a proud, sometimes overprotective father. He has been married twice, to Brenda Harvey from 1975 to 1993, and to Diane Alexander from 1995 to 2004, and both marriages ended in divorce, a fact he has discussed with unusual candour, admitting his own mistakes and the difficulty of maintaining a marriage while touring the world. He has also spoken about his father, whose illness in the late 1980s prompted his long break, and about his mother, who encouraged his music from the start, and the family story, with its Tuskegee roots and its Hollywood chapters, is woven through his songs.

His legacy as a songwriter is secure: he has written songs that have sold tens of millions of copies, that have been covered by artists in every genre, and that are still played at weddings, on radio and in films, and his run of hits in the late 1970s and 1980s, from Three Times a Lady to Hello to Say You, Say Me, is one of the great songwriting runs in popular music. As a performer, he is known for a voice that is warm rather than showy, a stage manner that is relaxed rather than frantic, and a catalogue that spans funk, soul, pop, country and R&B, a breadth that few artists have matched. He has won four Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a set of honours that reflects both the quality of the songs and the length of the career.

Today Lionel Richie is a working musician in his seventies, still judging American Idol, still touring, still singing All Night Long to audiences who know every word, and still writing, and the fact that he is doing so with the same warmth and the same professionalism that he showed in the Commodores suggests that the Tuskegee campus, with its discipline and its pride, is still with him. His songs have outlasted the decade that made them famous, and his influence can be heard in the work of younger singers who value melody, clarity and emotion over noise, and his story, from a college campus in Alabama to the biggest stages in the world, remains one of the most graceful in American music.

The video for Hello, directed by Bob Giraldi, told the story of a blind art student who sculpts Lionel’s face in clay, a tender, wordless romance that made the song even more memorable, and the video, which was one of the most played on MTV, became an iconic image of the 1980s, a moment that is still referenced, still parodied, and still celebrated, and the song’s success, which was driven by its melody, its lyric, and its video, made it one of the defining ballads of its era, a standard that other singers still cover, and a proof that a simple song, well sung, can become a classic, and that is a legacy that few ballads achieve, and that is a measure of Lionel’s talent, as a songwriter, as a singer, and as a performer, who understood, better than most, that a song needs a story, and that a video can tell it, and that is a lesson that he learned, in the 1980s, and that he has applied, ever since, to every record he has made, from Can’t Slow Down to Tuskegee, a lesson that is, by any measure, timeless.

Since 2018 he has been a judge on American Idol, alongside Katy Perry and Luke Bryan, a role that has made him a weekly presence on American television, and that has shown a side of him that his records never did, a mentor, a listener, and, above all, a kind man, who encourages young singers, who tells them the truth, and who, above all, believes in them, and the show, which is watched by millions, has become a platform for his warmth, his humour, and his experience, and his position as a judge, which he has held for eight seasons, is a testament to his authority, his credibility, and his audience, which is loyal, global, and, above all, patient, and that is a legacy that goes beyond music, and that is as important as any award he has won, because it is about a man who is, every week, on television, helping young people, and doing it, in every sense, on his own terms, with a voice that is, in every sense, his, and that is a story that is, by any measure, remarkable, and that is the key to understanding Lionel Richie, a singer who became a television judge, and who did it, without losing himself, and who, above all, never stopped working, never stopped singing, and never stopped being Lionel.

My Take:

When I think about Lionel Richie, the first word that comes to mind is not talent, although the talent is obvious, but steadiness, because his career has been built on a refusal to panic, to chase trends, or to make a fool of himself in public, and that steadiness is rarer than it looks. He was a funk singer who became a balladeer, a balladeer who became a pop star, a pop star who became a country collaborator, and each change was made calmly, without a reinvention press release or a new image, just a new record that sounded like him. I think that calm is the Tuskegee influence, the confidence of a man who grew up in a place where achievement was expected, and it is the reason his songs have lasted, because they were written by someone who was not trying to impress anyone, only to write a good song.

Hello is the song I would play for someone who wants to understand Lionel Richie in three minutes, because it contains everything he does best: a melody that is simple enough to remember after one hearing, a lyric that is direct without being sentimental, and a vocal that is warm, controlled and completely believable. The song is about longing, and it works because Lionel sings it as if he means it, without the vocal tricks that other singers use to show off, and the video, with its story of a blind student and a clay sculpture, gave the song a visual image that people still remember forty years later. I think Hello is one of the great ballads of the 1980s, and I think it is underrated by critics who prefer more complicated music, because its simplicity is the hard part, and Lionel makes it sound easy, which is the mark of a real songwriter.

The Commodores years are the part of his story that gets the least attention, and I think that is a mistake, because the band taught him everything that made the solo career possible. Playing saxophone in a funk band, writing ballads for a group that wanted to dance, learning to arrange harmonies and to hold a stage, those are the skills that let him write Three Times a Lady and Still, and the band’s discipline, touring constantly, recording constantly, is the reason his solo records sound so professional. I also think the Commodores gave him a humility that solo stardom often destroys, because he spent years as one member of a group, not the star, and that experience kept him grounded when the solo hits came, and it is why he still talks about the band with affection rather than resentment.

We Are the World is the achievement I admire most, not because it is his best song, it is not, but because it shows what Lionel Richie could do that almost nobody else could: bring a room full of famous, competitive people together and get them to sing for a cause. He co-wrote the song with Michael Jackson, he helped organise the recording session, he kept the night moving, and the result raised tens of millions of dollars for famine relief, which is a real, measurable good, not just a hit record. I think that night says something important about his character, that he was trusted by other stars, that he was organised, patient and generous, and those are not the qualities that get praised in pop music, but they are the qualities that make a career last fifty years.

The ten-year break in the late 1980s is the decision I respect most, because it is the one that cost him the most and taught him the most. He walked away from the top of the charts to look after his father and to deal with a failing marriage, and he did not record a new album for a decade, a gap that would have finished most artists, and he came back anyway, with Louder Than Words and then with Tuskegee, and the audience was still there. I think the break saved his career, because it stopped him from becoming a nostalgia act, churning out records nobody wanted, and it gave him the space to become a different kind of artist, a veteran who could choose his projects, and the fact that he is still working in his seventies, still enjoying it, is the proof that the decision was right.

Tuskegee, the 2012 country album, is the record I would recommend to anyone who thinks Lionel Richie is only an 1980s pop star, because it reveals the songwriting underneath the production, and it shows that his songs were always country songs in disguise. Stuck on You, Easy and Three Times a Lady, sung as duets with Shania Twain, Blake Shelton and others, sound natural in a country setting, because the melodies are strong and the lyrics are plain, and the album’s success, a number-one debut after thirty years, is one of the great comebacks in popular music. I think it also shows his intelligence as an artist, because he did not try to sound young or current, he simply found the audience that had always liked his songs and gave them a new version, and that is a smarter move than any reinvention.

His work as a judge on American Idol is the part of his later career that I enjoy most, because it shows the man behind the songs, warm, funny, encouraging, telling stories about the Commodores and the 1980s, and treating young singers with a respect that some judges do not. He is not there to be cruel or to make television, he is there to help, and the young singers know it, and the audience knows it, and the show is better for it. I think the judging role suits him because it uses the skills he has always had, listening, encouraging, telling the truth kindly, and it has introduced his music to a generation that was not alive when Hello was a hit, which is a gift that few veteran artists get, and he has used it well.

The family story, with Nicole, Miles and Sofia, is the part of his life that I find most moving, because he has been open about the difficulties of being a famous father, about the mistakes he made, about the divorces, and about the pride he takes in his children, and that openness is rare for a star of his generation. He adopted Nicole as a child, he raised her with Brenda, he watched her become famous in her own right, and he has never used her fame to promote himself, which is a kind of grace that is easy to miss. I think the family chapters of his story, the Tuskegee grandparents, the father he nursed, the children he raised, are the real foundation of the songs, because the love songs he wrote, from Three Times a Lady to Truly, were written by a man who understood family, and that understanding is what makes them last.

If a new listener asked me where to start, I would begin with Can’t Slow Down, because it is the perfect Lionel Richie album, with All Night Long, Hello, Stuck on You and Penny Lover on a single record, and it shows the range, the party song and the ballad, the pop and the country, in one place. After that I would go to Tuskegee, to hear the songs stripped back and sung with country singers, and then to the Commodores, to hear Easy and Three Times a Lady in their original form, and that journey, from the funk band to the pop star to the country collaborator, tells the story better than any biography, because it is the sound of a songwriter who kept growing without ever losing his voice.

What Lionel Richie has given popular music, beyond the hits, is a model of how to have a long career without losing yourself, and that model is worth studying, because the music business rewards the loud, the shocking and the new, and Lionel has been none of those things, only good, steady and kind. He has written songs that are played at weddings around the world, he has raised money for famine relief, he has mentored young singers, he has survived a ten-year break, two divorces and the death of his father, and he is still singing, still touring, still judging, still smiling, and the smile is not an act, it is the expression of a man who knows what he has built. I think his story will be remembered as one of the most graceful in American music, and I think the songs will outlast us all.

Looking at the whole arc, from the Tuskegee campus to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I see a career that was built on melody, manners and hard work, and I think those three things are underrated in an industry that celebrates drama. Lionel Richie never had a scandal, never had a public breakdown, never reinvented himself in a desperate way, and yet he has sold tens of millions of records, won a Grammy for Album of the Year, an Oscar for Best Original Song, and induction into the Hall of Fame, and he did it by writing good songs and treating people well. That is not a boring story, it is a remarkable one, and the fact that he is still doing it, in his seventies, with the same warmth he had in the Commodores, is the best argument I know for the idea that a career built on craft lasts longer than a career built on noise.

The Hello video is the visual I think best captures Lionel Richie, because it is a small, tender story, a blind student, a clay sculpture, a song about longing, and it works because it is simple, because it is honest, and because it lets the song do the work, without a spectacle, without a gimmick, and the video’s success, which was driven by its emotional directness, made it one of the most played on MTV, and it remains, more than forty years later, an iconic image, a moment that is still referenced, still parodied, and still celebrated, and that is a legacy that few videos achieve, and that is a measure of Lionel’s understanding, as an artist, that a song needs a story, and that a story, well told, can make a good song great, and that is a lesson that he learned, in the 1980s, and that he has applied, ever since.

Endless Love, the duet with Diana Ross, is the collaboration I admire most, because it is a song that spent nine weeks at number one, that became one of the best-selling singles of all time, and that did so because it is a perfect duet, with two voices, Lionel’s warm tenor and Diana’s soaring soprano, blending, harmonising, and, above all, believing what they are singing, and the song’s success, which was driven by its use in the film Endless Love, by radio, and by word of mouth, made it a standard, a song that is played at weddings, on radio, in films, and that is a legacy that few duets achieve, and that is a measure of Lionel’s talent, as a songwriter, as a singer, and as a collaborator, who understood, better than most, that a duet is a conversation, and that a conversation, well sung, can become a classic, and that is a lesson that he learned, in 1981, and that he has applied, ever since, to every collaboration he has done, from We Are the World to Tuskegee.

Say You, Say Me is the song I would play for someone who wants to understand Lionel Richie as a film songwriter, because it is a song written for the film White Nights, that won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, and that became a number-one hit, with a melody that is simple, a lyric that is direct, and a vocal that is warm, and the song’s success, which was driven by its use in the film, by radio, and by its Oscar win, made it one of his most played songs, and it remains, more than forty years later, a standard, a song that is played on radio, in films, and that is a proof that a song written for a film can become a classic, if it is good enough, and if the artist is brave enough to write it, and Lionel, who wrote it, understood, better than most, how to make a song that serves a film, and that stands on its own, and that is a rare talent, and one that deserves respect, even from critics who prefer his Commodores work, because Say You, Say Me is, by any measure, a great song, and a great Oscar winner.

We Are the World is the song I think best captures Lionel Richie as a songwriter and a citizen, because he co-wrote it with Michael Jackson in 1985, for USA for Africa, a charity single that raised money for famine relief in Ethiopia, and that featured forty-five of the biggest stars in American music, from Stevie Wonder to Bruce Springsteen to Bob Dylan, and the song, which sold millions of copies, and which won four Grammy Awards, including Song of the Year, proved that pop music could do good, that a song could be a movement, and that Lionel, who wrote it, understood, better than most, how to make a song that is both a hit and a humanitarian act, and that is a rare talent, and one that deserves respect, even from critics who prefer his solo work, because We Are the World is, by any measure, a great song, and a great achievement, and that is why it works, and why it will last, as a song that is played at charity events, at concerts, and that is a legacy that few songs achieve, and that is the reason Lionel Richie, who wrote it, is remembered, not just as a hitmaker, but as a man who used his gift, for good, and that is a story that is, by any measure, remarkable.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where was Lionel Richie born and raised?

Lionel Richie was born on 20 June 1949 in Tuskegee, Alabama, and grew up on the campus of the Tuskegee Institute, where his family lived and worked.

What band was Lionel Richie in before going solo?

He was a member of the Commodores, a soul and funk band he joined at Tuskegee Institute in 1968, and he left in 1982 to start his solo career after hits such as Easy and Three Times a Lady.

Which Lionel Richie song won an Academy Award?

Say You, Say Me, written for the film White Nights, won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, and it was also a number-one hit.

Did Lionel Richie co-write We Are the World?

Yes, he co-wrote We Are the World with Michael Jackson in 1985 for the USA for Africa charity project, and the single raised tens of millions of dollars for famine relief.

What is Lionel Richie’s country album called?

Tuskegee, released in 2012, features his hits re-recorded as country duets with singers such as Shania Twain and Blake Shelton, and it debuted at number one on the Billboard 200.

When was Lionel Richie inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022, and he also serves as a judge on American Idol, a role he began in 2018.