His enthusiasm is contagious, his spirit strong, his attitude irresistibly positive. LIONEL
RICHIE talks about Louder Than Words, his new album and first for Mercury Records, with a sense of wonder and joy.
"The joy," he says, "is in the songs. I've fought for a breakthrough, fought to reach another level of maturity, and feel
like I've won the fight."
The exuberant feeling is evident in LIONEL's conversational manner and musical demeanor. He's a man with
amission. "I'm determined to express myself as honestly and fully as possible. I'm determined to be me. And I'm
convinced Louder Than Words reflects where I am today. My soul is in these songs."
For a composer who has matched all-time leader Irving Berlin for number-one hits, RICHIE moves with the energy of
someone just starting out.
He speaks rapidly, leaping up to make points, dramatizing crucial scenes. Speaking with LIONEL, you easily forget he
ranks high among the most successful artists of the past three decades, selling hundreds of millions of records to a
worldwide audience of wildly devoted fans.
"Whenever I begin a new project," says RICHIE, "I like to forget past problems and approach it as if it's my first effort.
With this album, I was intent on creating my musical resume."
The resume, ranging from mainstream pop to country to rootsy R&B all the way to expressive jazz, is breathtakingly
vast. As a sculptor and singer of songs, LIONEL's versatility is unique. The fact that four years have passed since
RICHIE's last studio effort has added to the buzz of anticipation surrounding Louder Than Words.
"I've lived through an incredible period of growth," LIONEL explains. "A period of pain and introspection and change, a
period different than anything I've ever encountered, but ultimately a wonderful period of creative expression. I'm
thankful for the struggle."
The struggle involved the death of RICHIE's father, a divorce, and the death of a friend to AIDS. "All three events were
devastating," he confesses. "I had no choice but to take the time to deal with the emotions. Loss was something new
for me. I couldn't shrug it off or whistle it away. I had to look loss in the face and ask myself, `Can I survive these
blows? Am I strong enough?' I'm glad to say I am. And I'm thrilled to be able to put these feelings of loss and gain--all
my human feelings--into this record."
With Louder Than Words, RICHIE has forged a new collaboration with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis while reuniting with
David Foster and his longtime maestro, co-producer James Anthony Carmichael.
Carmichael has always been my guru, and he happens to be co-producer of nine of the album's twelve tracks. "He
was there in the beginning, bringing out the best in the Commodores," the hit group from which RICHIE emerged in
1982 to go solo. "Carmichael knows me inside and out. He lets me go free form, encourages me to go crazy and then
has the uncanny ability to say, `Now stop, Rich. Develop that idea.' Carmichael is a brilliant editor and the best
confidence builder I have."
Jimmy Jam and Lewis, best known for their work with Janet Jackson, represent a different generation of producer.
"They helped fan my R&B flames," LIONEL explains. "When I went to their studio in Minneapolis, everyone was calling
me `Mr. Richie.' But I made them call me `Lonnie Rickie.' I wanted them to see me as some writer hungry for his first
hit. Well, it didn't take long to get loose. `Rich,' they said, `you're the guy who did "Brick House" and we're gonna get
you ugly.'"
The resulting tracks--"Don't Wanna Lose You," with its haunting echo of the Commodores' RICHIE-written "Just To Be
Close To You," and "I Wanna Take You Down," a celebration of sensuous pleasure--reestablish LIONEL's credentials
as a serious funkster. "Say I Do," the third Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis jam, is an intimate ballad of hypnotic beauty.
"To rediscover the beauty of the artistic process," says RICHIE, "I went home to Alabama. Went back to my childhood
home on the campus of Tuskegee University where my grandmother taught classical piano and my mom taught
elementary school. I needed to sit and meditate and be still. Seeing me in this introspective mode, a homey came by
and said, `I've got some inspirational tapes for you.' The tapes turned out to be a complete retrospective of all my
recorded work. Homeboy was saying, `Hey man, the answer is within.'"
"I tried to put that sort of feeling into `Climbing,' a song I see as my `Sergeant Pepper.' It's my classical fantasy and my
way of saying, `Have the courage to face the changes you're going through.' I'm talking to the people, but I'm also
talking to myself."
"As a songwriter," LIONEL continues, "I never wanted to be the best R&B or country composer. I just wanted to be the
best. I wanted to be classed with Stevie Wonder, Lennon and McCartney, Elton John and Bernie Taupin. That meant
universal messages. I hope songs like "Still In Love" and "Can't Get Over You" fit into that category. I don't see myself
as a virtuoso vocalist in the Streisand or Sinatra class, but I do think I'm a credible story-teller."
At this juncture in his life, credibility is an essential component to RICHIE's musical makeup. He illustrates with a story
about the early days with the Commodores: "An older man came on stage one night, wanting to sing some
sure-enough blues. We were ready. But after we started playing, he stopped us, saying, `Y'all go to something else.
You're lying about these blues.' It took me years to understand his point: `If you haven't lived it, you can't play it.'"
"I've lived songs like `Lovers At First Sight.' That took courage for me, not only because of the character of the story,
but because as a jazz line, it challenged my jazz technique. The truth is that jazz predates my passion for R&B.
Before joining the Commodores, I was a saxist hooked on John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins and Stan Getz. After laying
down the vocals on `Lovers'"--the broodingly romantic piece that plays like a soundtrack to a French movie--"I was
going to call in a tenor saxophonist. But Carmichael wouldn't hear of it. `You're going to play that solo, Rich,' he said.
Well, it took a few minutes to warm up, but once I started blowing that bad boy I was back in a space of freedom and
poetry I hadn't felt in twenty-five years."
"Change" is another revelation, a track busy with multi-level meanings that may bring Marvin Gaye to mind. "I'd go by
Marvin's studio," RICHIE reminisces, "and marvel at how, stretched out on a couch, he'd construct his vocals, one
track on top of another. I loved Marvin for the complexity of his creations. Every time you'd hear a Marvin song, you'd
discover something new. That's what I was going for with `Change.' It's the one song where Carmichael had to pull me
back and say, `Enough, Rich.' Man, I was deep into it."
"Ordinary Girl" is extraordinary for the marriage of two master composers, RICHIE and Babyface. After his notable
success writing for Whitney Houston, Madonna and Toni Braxton, Babyface was the first to credit RICHIE whom he
called "a genius writer, the one guy who combined black and pop in melodies people will never forget." "I appreciated
Face's appreciation of me," says RICHIE. "Our collaboration was smooth as silk. We spoke awhile about the story,
this notion of a natural woman anchoring a restless man. Then Face played me a great track, I started putting melody
and suggesting lyric, and he did the same. And the rest is history."
RICHIE addresses the question of how the style of the nineties impacts his music: "The turning point came at a rap
concert. I wanted to hear what the hip street was saying. Backstage, I told some of the cats that I was considering
using rap on my next record. `Why do that?' they all asked. `You the man with the melodies. We're looking to you to tell
us where to go. We're the ones sampling you; you don't need to sample us. Just be you."
"I finally figured out that being me meant facing my biggest fear--my own mortality. Once that was achieved, I suddenly
saw words written all over the blank page. All these songs spoke to me directly and honestly."
Asked for a one-word description of the essential meaning of each song on Louder than Words, RICHIE's responses
are quick and unequivocal:
Looking over the musical palette, he seems satisfied to have unburdened his soul of a wealth of emotions.
"Simple songs sung with simple feelings," says LIONEL RICHIE, "is no simple task. I have to remind myself not to over
think or over analyze, but to create with the wonder of a child. That's what Louder Than Words means to me. Songs
that explain themselves, songs that go right to the heart and say all I know about the pains and joys of being human.
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