Slow Down? He Can’t

LIONEL RICHIE IS NOBODY’S FOOL

Presumably, they will sing “Endless Love” together.

      Next Saturday (31) in Inglewood, California, Lionel Richie and Diana Ross are due to headline the inaugural “Fool in Love” festival at Hollywood Park. It’s not clear which of the two superstars will perform first, and by that point, the audience may not be bothered, given the number and calibre of artists they will have seen from the start of the day.

      The festival line-up is remarkable by any standard. There are different stages in the Hollywood Park grounds (next to the SoFi stadium) and in addition to Ross and Richie, Smokey Robinson is set to headline on another stage. At still one more, George Clinton (with Funkadelic/Parliament) tops the bill, which – given his early Hitsville connections – means that Motown can claim credit for much of the event’s pre-show anticipation.

      Not to mention other former Hitsvillians who are booked for “Fool in Love,” including the Temptations (a late addition), the Spinners, the Jacksons, Gladys Knight, the Isley Brothers, the Dazz Band, El DeBarge and the Mary Jane Girls (although I won’t vouch for the fidelity of some of those line-ups).

      Richie, Ross and Robinson have all been out on the road recently, of course, playing to many tens of thousands of fans at home and (in Ross’ case) abroad. They assuredly represent the first two eras of Motown Records. “I was not from the Detroit school,” Richie self-evidently told me some years ago. “I was one of the kids who came in on the second wave. It was a strange time. I used to joke with the Commodores: ‘We’re standing in line with 15 other acts who want to make it at Motown’.”

      Yet to this day, no one else signed to Motown during the 1970s (or later) has outshone the “kid” from Tuskegee, Alabama. This, despite the fact that Lionel hasn’t released a studio album since 2012 (that one was called, er, Tuskegee) when he was under contract to Mercury Records.

      It was Suzanne de Passe who earned the credit for the Commodores’ early impact. They had inked their initial Motown contract on June 1, 1971, and she proposed them as the opening act for the Jackson 5’s concert tour that year, which was seen by 750,000 music fans across the United States. But the executive in charge of the record company when Richie began planning his solo career was Jay Lasker. At the time, the Commodores owed Motown two albums on their contract, with an advance of $1 million per album. Standard industry practice meant that were Richie to leave the group, he would owe the label two albums – and would receive a $1 million advance per album. Lasker’s concern was that if one (or both) of the solo records did very well, Motown would be forced into an expensive new contract and also run the risk of losing the singer/songwriter in a bidding war with competitors.

      Assisted by fellow Motown executive Skip Miller, Lasker dined with Richie in Beverly Hills one night in November 1981. “We’ve got a lot of faith in you,” he reportedly advised the star, “and we’re willing to go out on a limb and spend whatever it takes. But we can’t gamble all this and get just two albums. We’ve got to know we’ll have five albums.” Richie agreed, undoubtedly motivated by one of the highest royalty rates in the business – around 35 percent of wholesale – and the fact that Motown was willing to let him have his own publishing.

TENNIS WITH THE CHAIRMAN

      Lasker’s strategy paid off, and the firm’s investment in marketing Lionel Richie and his next album, Can’t Slow Down, delivered U.S. sales of five million and ten million copies, respectively. That second long-player also yielded five Top 10 singles, including two Number Ones, “All Night Long (All Night)” and “Hello.” When all its income streams are considered, it’s likely that Can’t Slow Down earned Richie close to $30 million.

      He had another asset: a good relationship with Motown’s chairman. It was, Richie recalled for me, helped by his skill at tennis. “I met Berry on a tennis court. I won the first game. But I learned that you wouldn’t leave his house until you were beaten. This man hated to lose.”

                     Diana and Lionel – a reprise?

      When Richie was originally commissioned to write music for a movie by the name of Endless Love, it was to be an instrumental. When director Franco Zefferelli decided it should be a vocal and then a duet, Gordy delivered. “Diana had just left Motown,” remembered Richie. “I wanted her to sing [with me]. Berry was the only person who could have made that phone call to her. How difficult for him it must have been.”

      Little wonder, then, that Richie’s talent, experience and connections have turned him into one of the entertainment industry’s most successful players, with a recent estimate putting his net worth at $200 million.

      Indeed, the onetime Commodore has been commercially enterprising for most of the past 40 years, beginning with a big-bucks deal with Pepsi-Cola, which sponsored his 1984-85 concert tours and had him appear in TV commercials. Since then, Richie has pitched on behalf of a beer dispenser (Tap King), perfume (Hello), branded sheets and towels (in partnership with J.C. Penney), a stockbroking firm (TD Ameritrade) and a financial technology business (Acrisure). “From what I’ve seen,” Richie said of that fintech deal last year, “its culture really embraces empathy – a sign you can be focused on growth without forgetting where you started. At the end of the day, that’s the type of company I want to work with.”

      He also has his own company to work with – or at least, RichLion Productions was identified as his when it announced in 2017 the acquisition of rights to make a biopic about Curtis Mayfield. Unfortunately, nothing has since been heard of that project, nor of the All Night Long stage musical reported in 2020 to be in the works at Walt Disney Studios.

      Still, Richie’s role as a judge on the next season of American Idol – he has been attached to the show since 2018 – is confirmed, while the Netflix documentary of which he was a producer, The Greatest Night in Pop, is up for three Emmy awards next month. If the film takes one of those, he’ll only need a Tony to qualify as an EGOT maestro.

      Meanwhile, given that Richie is five years the junior of Diana Ross, perhaps he should let his onetime duet partner be the ultimate headliner of the “Fool in Love” festival. “My love, there’s only you in my life…”

Post-Fool notes: and so it appears that “Endless Love” was not performed by Diana and Lionel, as this review indicates. But the festival was evidently a musical success, and none of the acts were “anything less than a pleasure to behold.” Here’s to Fool In Love 2.

Music notes: the work of an accomplished songsmith like Lionel Richie demands a WGB playlist, offered here. It features various covers of his compositions, including those by Sophie Ellis-Bextor (that English accent!) and Destiny’s Child. Speaking of covers, the Commodores’ original manager, Benny Ashburn, once wanted the group to record an album of Beatles songs for Motown. Jay Lasker said, thank you, but no (or perhaps, oh no).

Family notes: Lionel Richie has been affiliated with the Universal Music Group for years, either through its ownership of his Motown catalogue albums, or his later recordings for the Mercury and Island/Def Jam imprints. Richie’s daughter, Sofia, is married to Elliot Grainge, son of UMG chieftain Lucian Grainge. Elliot’s 10K Projects label was affiliated with his father’s market-leading empire until last year. Now the younger Grainge has been appointed CEO of Atlantic Records, part of UMG competitor Warner Music. Might Lionel sign with Atlantic one day? Or is he never going to record new material again?