{"id":10623,"date":"2014-05-17T01:34:38","date_gmt":"2014-05-16T17:34:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=10623"},"modified":"2014-05-17T01:34:38","modified_gmt":"2014-05-16T17:34:38","slug":"lionel-richie-recalls-early-distaste-for-hello-as-hit-song-turns-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/05\/17\/lionel-richie-recalls-early-distaste-for-hello-as-hit-song-turns-30\/","title":{"rendered":"Lionel Richie recalls early distaste for \u2018Hello\u2019 as hit song turns 30"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
Photo by DianeSunshineCoast \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TORONTO\u2014Thirty years after \u201cHello\u201d topped the chart, Lionel Richie can only marvel at how close he was to bidding the tune farewell.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Alabama native was dizzy from the success of his self-titled 1982 record, his debut as a solo artist after birthing a decade of hits with the Commodores including \u201cBrick House,\u201d \u201cEasy\u201d and \u201cThree Times a Lady.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

His longtime producer, James Anthony Carmichael, came over to his house for a songwriting session\u2014but just his physical presence was inspiration enough.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs he turned the corner to come into the room, I turned to him and said: \u2018Hello, is it me you\u2019re looking for?\u2019\u201d a jovial Richie recalled in a recent telephone interview.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe said: \u2018Finish that song.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Initially, Richie protested.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI kept saying to him, \u2018You gotta be kidding me, right? I was just joking.\u2019 He said, \u2018No no, that\u2019s incredible. Give me a verse to that.\u2019 So I actually went in writing this song not liking the song, thinking that it was corny. \u2018I mean, this is REALLY corny. This is not going to do well.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThen by the time I finished the verse, I fell in love with the song again.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But Richie\u2019s \u201cHello\u201d waffling wasn\u2019t yet through.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cJust to give you a true impression of what I thought about the song, here are the three songs I threw off the (1983) \u2018Can\u2019t Slow Down\u2019 album: \u2018Hello,\u2019 \u2018Running With the Night\u2019 and \u2018All Night Long.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt took somebody with some sense to tell me to put those back on. I\u2019d lost my mind!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Ultimately, \u201cCan\u2019t Slow Down\u201d gave Richie his first No. 1 album as a solo artist in many countries\u2014including Canada\u2014and went on to secure diamond certification here and the U.S.<\/span><\/p>\n

And it\u2019s fortuitous that Richie ultimately warmed to the ballads, because he\u2019s spent three decades since recalling them for fevered fans.<\/span><\/p>\n

The stylish 64-year-old will begin the next leg of his \u201cAll the Hits All Night Long\u201d greatest-hits tour May 29 in Vancouver, with July stops scheduled for Toronto, Montreal and London, Ont.<\/span><\/p>\n

This after an extensive North American trek last year and a thorough stint of globe-hopping earlier in 2014, a jaunt that saw Richie traipse across Australia and New Zealand in addition to seven Asian countries.<\/span><\/p>\n

Though the five-time Grammy winner seems to possess a boundless energy\u2014he practically shouts his cheerful greeting down the line\u2014the travel can be a bit much for a grandfather of two (via his adopted daughter, Nicole Richie) who started his Motown career nearly a half-century ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone asked me: \u2018Do you suffer from jet lag?\u2019 I said, \u2018I\u2019ve been suffering from jet lag since \u201878.\u2019 I don\u2019t know what jet lag feels like anymore,\u201d he said with a boisterous laugh. \u201cYou walk around some days and go, \u2018I\u2019m feeling dizzy.\u2019 (I\u2019m) dizzy every day. Ears are ringing every day.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBefore I\u2019d tell the joke that at the beginning of my career you try to hang out at night and try to get as fuzzy as you possibly can, you try to get your brain as fuzzy as you can, and for the next 30-40 years, I\u2019m going to work on trying to get as sharp as I can.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Still, he acknowledges mixed results.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe travel so much, I have to actually ask every night where are we, you follow me? Because even though I woke up in Amsterdam, the show is in England … and the problem is I\u2019m still thinking I\u2019m in Amsterdam. So can you imagine walking on this stage: \u2018I\u2019m in Denver!\u2019 \u2018No, it\u2019s Dallas, Lionel.\u201d\u2018<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThree meals a day and (personal) space, not to mention eight hours of sleep, becomes … a commodity after a while,\u201d he added. \u201cI think that\u2019s the key to the whole thing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When he wanes, however, he has the audience to lift him.<\/span><\/p>\n

Packed as it is with hits as familiar as family, this tour is a \u201cnight of karaoke,\u201d he says. And though he\u2019s been associated with slow-burn ballads since his time crooning and blowing a sax with the Commodores, he insists the set is surprisingly high energy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe loudest songs of the night are the slowest songs,\u201d he said. \u201cYou would think … it\u2019s going to be boring, but no, it\u2019s a singalong. \u2018Three Times a Lady\u2019 is the loudest song. \u2018Hello\u2019\u2014forget about it. \u2018Hello,\u2019 they can\u2019t wait to sing that song with me. \u2018Say You Say Me\u2019 becomes an anthem.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Somewhat miraculously, Richie took \u201cEndless Love,\u201d \u201cTruly,\u201d \u201cAll Night Long (All Night),\u201d \u201cHello\u201d and \u201cSay You Say Me\u201d all to No. 1 over a furious four-year period in the early \u201880s.<\/span><\/p>\n

All of those songs were Richie compositions. Looking back, he says he was fuelled by competition.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe had the Italian race car (drivers\u2019) theory, which is: what\u2019s behind me doesn\u2019t count,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat I always learned in my business was you could be ice cold with a No. 1 record. … As soon as they hear \u2018All Night Long,\u2019 the first thing they\u2019ll say is: \u2018Oh my God, he can\u2019t do that again.\u2019 So you have to have the next record ready.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLook who\u2019s breathing over your shoulders,\u201d he added. \u201cYou\u2019ve got the Bee Gees on one side, you\u2019ve got Prince and Michael (Jackson). Come on. You\u2019ve got every major rock band in the world. It\u2019s not like we were starving for talent at that time. We really had to produce, \u2018cause the airwaves were full of creative people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo I just kept going and going and going,\u201d he concluded. \u201cTwenty-five years later, holy mackerel. I\u2019m pretty happy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, Richie\u2014who returned to the top of the charts in 2012 with \u201cTuskegee,\u201d which reworked his classic tunes in a country framework\u2014knows some serendipity was mixed with that sweat.<\/span><\/p>\n

After nearly excluding \u201cHello\u201d from \u201cCan\u2019t Slow Down,\u201d he then threatened to meddle with the song\u2019s video.<\/span><\/p>\n

That clip ultimately cast the smooth singer as an art professor pining after a fetching blind student. The teacher believes he\u2019s yearning in vain until he realizes the sculpture his pupil is worrying over is a portrait of his face.<\/span><\/p>\n

The video, with 33.5 million views on YouTube, became one of the most beloved of its era. And Richie almost lost the plot.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI kept telling Bob Giraldi, who of course insisted on making the girl blind, I kept saying: \u2018Are you kidding me? This is a straightforward love song. What are you talking about?\u2019\u201d he recalled, laughing.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c(Then) to add insult to injury … I took a look at the bust that they were sculpturing for me, and I kept saying: \u2018It doesn\u2019t look like me. The head\u2019s too big. It doesn\u2019t look like me.\u2019 He said, \u2018We\u2019ll talk about it later.\u2019 Well, first scene, second scene, it\u2019s getting closer to the scene and I\u2019m saying: \u2018Bob, I\u2019ll do it, but it doesn\u2019t look like me!\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe said: \u2018Lionel\u2014she\u2019s blind.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Richie can\u2019t stop laughing as he remembers the incident.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s my \u2018Hello\u2019 video, yet again not realizing that she was blind and the fact that the whole scene\u2014it played out around the world. The whole world saw that video, I must tell you.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cStill to this day, people stop and talk to me about it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TORONTO\u2014Thirty years after \u201cHello\u201d topped the chart, Lionel Richie can only marvel at how close he was to bidding the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":10624,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hollywood","mauthors-nick-patch","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}