#2388 - Lionel Richie

Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

The Joe Rogan experience.

Showing by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.

How are we doing?

Good.

We're rolling.

Love you to meet you, sir.

It's about time.

Yes, thank you very much for being here.

This is an honor.

It is same here, man.

Same here.

How does a person like you

fit your life into a book?

Because you

your career is so wide and so long

you've had so many experiences from the Commodores in the 70s

the 70s still rocking 70s 70s so Joe let me tell you something uh

it it really accounts for I'll tell you the joke of the book first

right I'm probably the only guy in the world that had a book had a book with probably a thousand pages in it I turned a thousand pages in.

They said, What the hell is this?

And I said, War in peace.

War and peace.

And I said, and I've got some more stories.

I've got some more stories.

And so, for the first time in the history of Harper's, probably they said, Mr.

Richie, no more stories.

We don't need any more stories.

In fact, can we take some of the stories out?

Oh, no.

So, to answer your question, we can't fit all of my life story in a book, but we just had to find the ones that were actually, you know, humorous in certain cases, educational in certain cases, because it's wide, it's big and that.

But I enjoyed the process

of kind of looking back.

Because if you understand me, I have the Italian race car driver's theory.

What's behind me doesn't count.

What's in front of me?

That's a very good way of looking at life.

So what this book made me do was actually...

turn around and look behind me.

And I tell you what I discovered.

I discovered Lionel Ritchie.

Because up to this point, I had never really gone into the depths of how I got here.

I just remember, because you want to forget.

You just kept going.

Just kept going.

Look, keep going straight.

You tripped over that.

I don't remember.

You tripped over that.

I don't remember.

What's next?

Yeah.

And you try to kind of, you know, it's like playing football.

You got hit really badly on that last play, but you go back to the huddle.

You know what I'm saying?

Are you hurt?

You won't know until tonight after you get off the field, and they'll tell you you broke your arm.

You know what I'm saying?

But

it's really don't stop moving forward.

And that's really what this whole thing was.

This exercise in this book was really for me to actually go, hmm, I can't believe I did that.

Did you learn anything about yourself from going back and just recalling all these stories and putting them to paper?

Did I learn?

Did I learn?

Absolutely.

If you had said to me

when I first started, my life, you you know, my dad used to always have this line over and over again, you know,

a great fighter is not determined by how many punches he can throw.

It's how many punches he can take.

And I realized that I could take punches.

I'm the most unlikely person to take a punch because I'm not that guy.

If I can talk my way out of it, I will.

But if you understand life itself, number one, that's difficult.

And then if you start thinking about the music business, the entertainment business, it's an impossibility.

You're going to get punched every day of your life.

And what's that punch?

No, no, no, no.

That's the punch.

Now, can you get up off the floor and come back?

Can you get a bad review and come back?

Can they not like you and you come back?

Can you find that that's a humorous thing instead of a tragic thing?

Can you come back?

Can you lose friends along the way?

Can you come back?

So you don't really realize,

you know, this is a business.

If you look at it, think about how many people we've lost.

When I started writing this book, I started thinking to myself,

where's Luther?

Where's Michael?

I want to tell you more stories about Prince,

but it's not fair because, in certain cases, I want him to be here to laugh with the joke, too.

You follow me?

And so, then you start realizing, damn, this is lucky.

This is really blessed time now because I'm in rare survival error, if you will.

I'm still here at 200 years old talking about my career, but I'm telling the story.

Someone else is not telling it for me.

That's important.

That's important.

Right, because so many times when someone passes and then you get this sort of cobbled together version of their life without their own unique personal perspective, you miss a lot.

You miss a lot.

And especially things that people thought were

terrifying or tragic,

if you talk to the person themselves, that was a learning experience.

So you keep thinking, oh my God, what did you do when that happened?

And you go, no, no, no, no, no, I needed that.

Because I wouldn't have been to the next person if I had not experienced that.

Because it's like trying to go, you know, to scrimmage before a big game.

You're with your team.

Well, they hit harder from the other team.

So you got to practice hard.

Well, the only way to get into the music business, you got to be on the feel.

Practice is not in the equation.

Right.

You got to get out on the field, and it's nasty, and it's not designed for you to survive.

And I try to say this to the kids on American Idol: I said, listen, I love you.

You got a great personality, but you better hope, like hell, you have a sense of humor.

Because if you don't,

it's going to eat you up alive.

Did you develop this mentality along the way, or was this something that you just uniquely had?

This is my character.

If you understand something, I was, and I tell this joke all the time, I was

too small to play football, too short to play basketball.

Baseball was a projectile coming at me at 300 miles an hour.

I'm not standing in front of that thing.

And the only thing I could play was tennis.

So you understand,

walking around on a tennis court in the middle of the civil rights movement, you know, you have to develop a sense of humor, otherwise you're going to die.

And so

I found also, again, it's funny what your father will say to you

back, and you wonder, how did he get through all of his life?

Because they went through the struggle of life.

And he said, if you lose your sense of humor, they got you.

And I always remembered the fact that if you can find something funny out of this experience, take that haha to the next day.

And so I kind of use that as my mantra, basically, that, okay,

where am I?

I'm at the Grammys, okay.

What am I complaining about?

I'm complaining about I don't like my seat.

What did they just say?

I won.

Who cares?

You know what I'm saying?

Or you're just at the Grammys.

You know how many people don't get to come to the Grammys just on the invitation.

And so you have to go back and look at this as far as is it really

that serious?

Or, you know, you have to kind of put things in perspective.

And so, you know, the first half of my career was just a matter of

how do I get there?

The second half of my career is, can I please try to enjoy a little bit of it?

And that's where I am right now because, you know,

the song's stuck around.

More importantly, I'm still here, which is the blessing.

You're still here and you look great.

I'll take that as a compliment.

You really do.

You look very healthy and

energy.

Looking at you across the table from me, I think I left my muscles back in the hotel room.

But you know,

it's all about

two and a half hour show a night for the last 50 years.

That's my golf game.

Training.

Training.

Because you've got to be ready for two and a half hours.

And I don't care what you think.

You're the greatest guy in the world.

I'll put you on that stage and give you 50,000 people.

And you,

after running with a night or all night long,

sing a slow song.

I dare you.

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And do it since 1970.

Like, was the Commodore 72?

Did you guys start?

Well, let me tell you, we started in 68

on the university campus.

We were students.

It started out as a group called the Mystics,

and we were the talent show.

We didn't realize that we were the joke of the seniors, of the juniors.

They have a freshman talent show every year, and we wanted to be the band to be the freshman talent show.

We came out on stage and killed it.

And it was a guy, another group there called the Jays, which was the seniors.

They had been there for the last four years, and they were the biggest group on campus.

They were about to break up.

And a guy named Michael Gilbert gave us a phone call and said, I want to put a group together.

And I was looking at you four guys.

Would you like to come and join this band over here?

The answer is, that was the beginning of the Commodores.

And how old were you at the time?

19 years old.

Wow.

Thank you very much.

Wow.

19 years old, and we're going to take over the world,

Joe.

You know what I mean?

In other words, you know,

there's James Brown, there's Marvin, and there's the Commodores.

You know how that works, you know.

And what I love about that period of time,

we could be, you know, all right, all wrong, but we were all together.

It didn't make any difference.

So we experienced every possible, imaginable part of growing up together.

I didn't grow up with brothers.

I had one sister.

So these became, forget the band, these were five brothers.

And we were in every disaster you could probably think about.

And we laughed our way in and out of every today.

We'd all be in jail.

I can make that statement.

I mean, but back then, it

it was the best.

And at 19 years of age, you're just

starting to become a man, and then you're thrust into superstardom in a crazy time in human history.

It was, well, first of all, we didn't really get into recording until 71, 72.

We were just the biggest, largest, most dynamic band in our heads

across the the South, and until we were the opening act for the Jackson 5, their first tour that they went out on,

we were the opening act for them.

That was our first look at, holy crap, this is

huge.

And then I'm an economics major, an accounting minor, and all of a sudden I kept thinking, I don't know what this business is, but

I think I want to be in it.

Because you have to understand something.

When you play tennis,

what's the number one thing you will never hear ever?

A girl screaming.

That's not going to happen.

Football, basketball, you hear them all day long.

I was going to be an Episcopal priest, thinking that's my avenue.

And I'm on stage one night at the Jackson show, and all of a sudden, some girl said, sing it, baby.

And I said, call the minister back on the phone.

I said, I don't think I'm going to be priest material.

I just want you to understand.

You have to know at that point.

You have to identify your lane.

You know, I had never heard that, Joe, in my life.

Of course.

You know what I'm saying?

And how many people ever get to hear?

20 years.

21 years old.

Yeah.

Right.

I got an emotion.

Thank you very much.

And from that point on, it was just a matter of riding this wave of, we finished that Jackson tour.

We ended up in Motown, Hollywood Bowl.

Motown saw us there.

Suzanne DePaz was, of course, the one who put the Jacksons together and all that.

She knew us from

our manager, Cape Cod, and Martha's Vineyard Island.

Next thing we know, we're recording.

Hallelujah.

And then you're off to the races.

We're off to the races.

Off to the races, Joe.

And I tell you,

you know, looking at this book,

it's a question,

I survived or how I survived.

But the question to me was, I survived?

Because

it's not, it's, I mean, I can tell you stories and it's, well, they're in the book, but I'm just saying there are moments when you just look around and go, thank God for just being naive,

young, stupid, didn't have any idea of what the heck you were doing, but what a great adventure.

I'm in a subway four o'clock in the morning, my saxophone, and I had this little secret thing that no one knew.

I had this seeth, shh, seesh, seeth, sheath,

seeth,

sheath around my neck.

Didn't know it had a secret compartment.

Of course, everybody in Harlem knew it was a secret compartment.

I had all my money in that.

And I'm walking around going, no one knows I have my money in there, right?

Which is everybody had my money in there.

I would walk up and down the subway.

No one would touch us.

No one.

I don't know.

It has to be a sense of divine guidance

or Big Frank Lucas just told everybody, don't touch us.

One or the other.

But I mean, it was just one of those moments in time where, you know,

I've had some people say to me, you were in Harlem at 4 o'clock in the morning in the subway alone?

I said, yeah.

With a saxophone.

With a saxophone.

God bless you, kid.

Wow.

God bless you.

It must seem almost surreal looking back because you've had such an incredible life, such an incredible career.

It almost, I mean, I can't imagine what it feels like just reminiscing and going through the stories and just looking at the actual facts of what you did.

I'm glad I'm doing the book now because otherwise I would be,

let's say when I got to about 98, 99, because I'm planning on a full life, right?

There's an old man at the barbershop still telling lies about his life when he was growing up, you know, because it has to be a lie.

You know, and,

you know,

there was one title I was joking around with, which is, you're not going to believe this shit.

That would be a great title.

That would be the title, you know, and I was thinking that might be the way to go.

And then, of course, I kept thinking, no, but from a philosophical point of view, that's not going to fly right.

Okay, we'll pull that back.

But the point is, it's almost not believable.

I mean, when you start

calling off names, it's almost like name dropping.

And you start thinking about who mentored you,

who gave you the advice.

who was there for you exactly at the right time, who came in, who left right on time.

You know what I'm saying?

There are moments that happen that if I tried to script this thing, if I tried to put it down as a complete play,

chapter by chapter, you know, act by act, you couldn't make this up.

I mean, it just, it reads like

a book.

Or like a crazy movie.

Like, if your life was a movie, I'd be like,

that seems a little unrealistic.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Too many good things happen.

Yeah, yeah.

But only,

yeah, yeah, to the point where somebody says,

I remember a couple of my friends,

why am I drawing a blank?

Rick James.

Rick James had a great line for me.

Every time he saw me, I say, Rick, how are you doing?

I hate you.

And that means I love you, but I hate you.

I hate you, man.

And of course, I get it, you know, because

things along the way become almost

charmed.

Right.

You know, it's like, okay,

did I go out and call Dick Clark and say I wanted to host the American Music Awards?

No, no.

He called us and said, Lionel, forget that guy in New York.

Look at that guy in New York.

You're doing it.

You're doing it.

I mean, forget that guy.

Now, whoever that guy was, the gift was handed to me.

And now I spent the next two or three weeks trying to convince Mr.

Clark

that I don't have any training in how to be a host

and that's when he would come to me and say ah

you school boys are all the all the same you think you need a diploma before you think you know something you know these lines that come out of this whole story you know that's not orchestrated that's not scripted.

It came from the other side back this way.

Yeah.

Do you feel charmed?

Yes.

Yeah.

Do you feel like

the word I'll use is blessed.

It's one of those things where my grandmother said something to me

a while back.

I just finished Endless Love

and I went back to Tuskegee.

And I'm walking around in the house pacing back and forth.

And she says, what on earth are you doing?

And I said, I'm trying to figure out my next move.

And she said, did you come to school to join the Commodore?

She said, no, no,

I met them on the campus.

She said, did you plan on being a writer?

No, no, no, no, I found out I was a writer.

She said, did you plan on being a lead singer?

I said, no, no, no, no.

I found out when I joined the group that.

She said, why don't you just get a good night's sleep and wait for God to give you the next?

Wow.

And that's how I started my career.

That's an incredible woman.

You know, that's incredible perspective.

Quit trying to figure this out.

Did you figure it out before?

No.

Then just relax.

Chill out.

Can you read and write music?

No.

Okay.

Just

chill out.

That's so hard to tell a young person, though, and have them absorb it.

Because especially someone going through what you're going through.

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Yeah.

I try to tell the kids on American Idol, you know, sometimes you have to look at failure as a great sign.

If they had told the Commodores on the first time we auditioned, you got it, ready to go, the answer is we weren't ready to go.

It took no and no.

and no and we at it signing at Atlantic no signing at Philly International no

But we're the greatest band ever.

You're right.

What did they say to us?

You sound just like the temptations.

You sound just like Sly in the Family Stone.

What do you sound like?

Wow.

What do we sound like?

I don't know.

So the only way we have to find out is we have to start

not imitating somebody else.

Now comes the thing of, well, what do we sound like?

And I didn't know, I didn't know how to write, so I, how do you write?

Follow me, and then you get to Motown.

I'm signed to Motown.

I don't know how to read or write music.

What the hell am I doing here with this band?

I'm not the lead singer.

I sing some cover songs.

And then you walk down the hall and there's Marvin.

So I decided I'm going to interview Marvin.

Excuse me, Marvin.

What music conservatory did you graduate from?

And he said, what the hell is that?

I said, oh, I mean, how do you write your music?

He said, no, no, no, brother.

Can you hum?

Yeah.

He says, all that you can't play with three fingers,

hum it into a tape recorder.

And then you go down the hall again.

And it's smoky.

And there's Barry Gordy, who built Motown.

Excuse me, Mr.

Gordy, what...

What university did you graduate from?

He said, I was at a car plant.

What are you talking about?

Everything that I grew up with on the campus of Tuskegee as a kid, I grew up on the university campus.

That's academia.

Did not apply in the world of hustle.

You understand?

Yeah.

So I'm now meeting the guys and ladies who found their hustle.

They had a PhD in hustle.

They had a PhD in hustle.

And I am telling you, Joe, from that moment on,

I was let out of the box.

Somebody let me out of the cage.

Because in academia, there's a logical reason why you know what you know because you studied it.

Right.

But I was that kid that was sitting in the class going,

Mr.

Richie, Mr.

Richie,

would you like to join the rest of the class?

I was daydreaming.

Right.

I found at Motown, the whole damn company was tapping on the table.

I found out in New York City, whole town is tapping on the table and dancing.

And so from that point on, I joined this creative

source force fraternity sorority of crazy out of control people that gave me permission to dare to listen to myself.

That must have been so exciting to learn that.

That the structure that you learned in academia.

Like, no, these wizards no no these wizards of music these masters of giving people emotion and power and energy right I mean I

get chills sitting talking to you watching Marvin record and you keep thinking he walked in with a paper and he had written these lyrics no man he is scatting at the microphone Really?

Oh, say that.

You know,

I'm thinking to myself, what am I watching?

And then he said, bring the microphone over to the couch.

He's on the couch

singing in the couch in the control room.

What's it when am I watching?

What's happening?

In other words,

it was just so organic and so,

you know, because you think about the orchestra and they're there and the no man, this is

inside of a wonderful dream of watching creativity just explode with no

doors, no windows, no walls.

And he was making this up in real time.

Wow.

You're talking about freestyle.

My man was freestyling, coming up with some of the greatest lyrics ever on life's planet.

And I kept thinking, okay, so let me go back and put that in my little hamper.

So did he have an idea of where he was going with these songs?

I think he had a feeling about the idea, but did he know the exact words?

You know, it's like when you close your eyes and you're in it.

Yeah.

But see, I didn't understand how to be in it.

You know, I kept thinking, well, let me put it this way.

I was trying to think.

So you, because of the academic background.

Yeah, you're trying to logically.

There's a logical reason why you're about to say what you're going to say.

Right.

Instead of just saying, okay, just turn on the mic.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying?

Just turn on the mic, man.

I got it.

You know, to this day,

I have a thing that I do that still wears out my management.

And

I have to do a speech or something.

And they say, okay,

can you give me the speech so we can put it on the teleprompter?

And I said,

I don't have a speech to give you.

Lionel, we need the speech.

to put on the teleprompter so you'll know what to say.

I don't know what I'm going to say.

What do you mean you don't know what to say?

I said, no, I won't know what I'm going to say until I get there.

And I walk out on stage.

I said, now how long do you want the speech?

They said, we have five minutes.

I'll give you five minutes worth of speech.

They just have to trust you.

Wow.

That's how I do it.

And you learn from watching the greats.

The greats.

And there must have been such an unique shift in perspective and how you view the world and how you approach things to see people to know that your daydreaming was actually just talent trying to burst free exactly that's and they knew how to just take that talent and just be unharnessed

it was to the point where

i was actually trained

you know this is grandma foster a m foster

she courted my grandfather in booker t washington's house

That's where she came from, Tuskegee.

My grandfather, they knew Booker T.

She knew George Washington Carver.

In my home in Tuskegee, Alabama, there's a crocheted piece from Mr.

Carver, Dr.

Carver.

My dear Mrs.

Foster, congratulations on your wedding.

Wow.

That's a crocheted piece.

The deed to my house has the Washington family's name on the deed to my house.

It was given to me, not to me, to my grandmother and grandfather by the Washington family Booker T.

So now,

when you have all that background, it's kind of one of those things where, where do you go with this thing, you know?

Right.

And so, you know,

my upbringing was

pretty amazing where it had structure.

had structure.

And now here I am over in this other side where,

wait a minute, you mean I don't have to remember anything, I can make up something

and allow the universe to just give you,

I can just

make up something,

but what do you want to make up?

I don't know.

So, then it's a word that we learned called receiving.

I'm just receiving.

So, now where does receiving come from?

Receiving comes from the silence.

It's not the noise.

It's in the silence.

So here I am between

one and six in the morning,

and everyone thinks,

What's Lionel doing?

He's just kind of sitting there.

What's he doing?

Nothing.

But let me hear, let me let you in on a little sound that's terrifying to most people.

You ready for this?

You hear that, Joe?

Silence.

Right?

Now if you can hear,

out of the silence

comes the, you're receiving that from the other side.

It is a receiving, isn't it?

Yeah, when you,

you know, sometimes you just have to just blanket out.

Some people call it meditation.

Some people have all kind of names for it.

I just love to listen to silence.

By the way, there's only 12 notes, Joe.

It's not 145 notes.

It's only 12 notes.

So everything that has ever happened that you've ever heard on any radio, it's only 12 notes.

So how do you turn 12 notes into something that sounds new, different?

That's amazing to me.

Yeah, it is amazing.

And so in the silence, and all you have to do is learn how to figure out what are the four chords.

Because if you got four or five chords you can write a whole album

but it's the melody that goes on top that you have to be able to hear

and so once I learned that

Marvin and

Smokey and you know Michael Quincy and you know these are Hendrix I saw the poster come in you know

They all made careers, not only careers, they had their unique sound out of 12 notes.

Think about that.

Now, if you think it's hard enough to get a hit record, how do you become unique unto yourself with those 12 notes?

That is one of the geniuses of Hendrix is that you could tell Hendrix with like in three seconds.

He didn't have to come in singing.

No.

No.

You just heard a little bit of

done.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Doo-doo, done.

Doom, doom, done.

Doom.

Do-do-do.

You can humming it.

You can humming.

Yeah, right.

But six was nine.

That's Hendrix.

Like, there's a sound that he was was able to make.

And there's very few people that figure out how to do that.

I did not understand that.

The blessing was not in having a hit record.

The blessing was in having a unique sound.

Okay.

Stevie sounds like Stevie.

Smokey sounds like Smokey.

You know what I'm saying?

And so when you start thinking about, okay, now, by the way, you can't rehearse that.

That's either your gift or

you can't say, well, I'm going to work on my sound.

No,

it's a real thing.

That's why

when we do American Idol, I tell them over and over again, I'm not looking for singers.

I'm looking for stylists.

What's going to make me close my eyes and remember you?

I don't want to see you.

Can I identify you by your voice?

That's a career.

Do you have conversations with people that don't know how to receive?

And do you try to, like, when you're talking to a young artist and maybe they're a little bit too technical or maybe they're a little bit too constrained, do you have conversations with them about, what do you say to them?

Yeah, I do.

And I could see their frustration, you know.

Lionel, I can't believe.

It's amazing how you went to that augmented seventh with a diminished nine with a raised 18th with a 45.

And I'm sitting there going, I can't read music.

And he goes, and the way you did that modulation from body da dana, and I said, I can't read music.

And he kept saying, and the way you turned that vocal around, it came back down to that augmented seventh over raised ninth.

And I kept saying, I can't read music.

So I try to tell them, listen,

forget the notes.

Can the crowd sing your song?

If they can't sing your song, dazzling them with notes is not going to get it.

That's the first thing.

That's for the guys who can read and write and do the full Juilliard and Berkeley and kill her.

That's for them.

Now,

for the kids who are just brilliant, by the way, and they know their music,

but they don't know how to receive.

My answer now is: now that you know the technical, forget it.

Now, tell me what you're feeling.

Now play that.

And instead of playing 15 chords,

play one

and hum as much as you can holding that one chord.

And then when you get tired of putting everything in that one chord, that's the second chord coming up.

You follow me?

Yeah.

Because what happens is musicians, they want to go, we are the dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, ding, ding, bang.

No, no, no, no.

Stop playing.

Bang, we are the world.

Bang, we are.

Just keep holding that go.

Bang, we are the ones that make it brighter day.

Let's not give me.

Bang, there's a

bang.

Yeah.

Now you change.

Yeah.

You follow me?

Yeah.

Because if you confuse me and you dazzle the world with all of your musicianship, you just miss the melody that the whole world can sing.

You miss the purity.

You miss the purity.

Yeah.

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Wow.

Did they get it when you try to tell it to you?

Or is it one of those things like you're going to have to live more?

You're going to have to live more.

Yeah.

Because remember now, when Marvin said to me,

he was giving me the words of wisdom.

When

Norman Whitfield, who wrote wrote Cloud 9 and all these, you know,

just amazing temptation songs.

Cloud 9,

be what you want to be.

You don't need no responsibility.

Everybody come in now.

He's playing one note.

Wow.

Okay, they hadn't changed yet.

He wrote the whole first verse.

Okay.

Ball of confusion.

You're still on one note.

Wow.

Okay.

It takes time to understand what that master just told you.

Right.

You follow me?

Yeah.

And then once you understand the simplicity

is the secret.

The simplicity is the secret.

It's like when you go to a restaurant and they put too much sauce on the steak.

I could have given you a better answer.

Just give me some chicken.

Yeah.

Give me fried chicken.

Give me baked chicken.

Give me smothered chicken.

Don't, don't, don't get too.

You don't have to get crazy.

Right.

And at the end, just give me an apple pie.

Just give me key likes pie.

Just you know what I'm saying?

Give me a lemon meringue.

Give me pumpkin pie.

You don't have to get crazy.

Don't get crazy.

We have a deconstructed.

And I go, just put it together.

Put the whole thing together and give it to me.

Because

sometimes with some music, well, it's one of the things you can't connect to.

It's like it's overcomplicated.

And you hear some music and it's like, God, there's so much going on.

And then you hear some acoustic version of a song.

You're like, oh my God.

That's it.

Oh my God.

Yeah.

You just hear

the pick scratching across the strings.

You're like, oh my God.

Yeah, Mr.

Gordy,

I've known him enough now where I can say Barry.

But he's clearly Mr.

Gordy.

Clearly.

He taught me the greatest line ever.

I went to him and I met him in the hallway.

And he would never, ever

say, oh, congratulations, you got a hit record.

That's not what he would say.

He'd always say, oh,

Marvin's got a hit.

Marvin's got a smash coming out.

I go, Mr.

Gordon, I just want to let you know I have a number one record.

Marvin's got one coming out.

It's going to be a smash.

And then,

what do you have next?

What do you have next?

And then I said, okay, well, I got a hit record.

He says, I said, let me go out to the car and get a tape.

I want you to hear it.

No, no, no.

You got a hit record, hum it to me.

Wow.

Hum it to me.

If you need to play music, you got a nice tune.

There's your tempo.

Now hum it to me.

Wow.

Now that means the crowd is going to sing along every note with you.

You don't have to wait to the hook.

They'll sing the verse with you.

What is that pressure like?

I would love to tell you, was it pressure?

No.

No, I would tell you that there's an old expression

that a jazz musician said to me years ago, you either understand or you don't.

You can either hear it

or you don't.

That's all it is.

In other words,

and my line is,

If you can hear me tapping on the table,

and all you hear is me tapping on the table,

you're not a songwriter.

But if you hear me tap on the table

and you hear a song,

you're a songwriter.

Class dismissed.

We don't have to waste any more time.

It is a bizarre thing that creativity, which is one of the most important things in our society, cannot be taught.

No, no.

I mean, you meet

brand new person every day.

I meet crowds of people.

You meet one-on-one people every day.

That's difficult.

That's difficult.

And to know something about them and wanting to find out more and how does your personality work with that other person?

That's a skill.

But that's not even a skill.

That's not something you practice.

That's something you had in you from way down deep.

It's just the more you do it, you got better and better at being

that person.

That's exactly correct.

You follow me?

Yeah.

So if I said to you right now, how did you study that, Joe?

You go, eh, just

turn on the mic.

Well, I'll tell you,

I just got very fortunate that a job existed that didn't exist before, which is podcasting, where you get to talk to interesting people.

There you go.

And luckily for me,

I don't have anybody telling me who to have on.

So I just go through, I have like a line of emails every day, and I'm like, ooh, Lionel Richard.

Hey, fuck yeah.

I said, fuck yeah, that one.

I put down, fuck yeah, Lionel Richard.

But there's a bunch like that.

Ooh, I'd like to talk to him.

There's some guy who's an astronomer.

Oh, yeah, bring him on.

Let me see some of his stuff.

Then I'll go watch some videos, listen to him, give lectures.

I'm like, all right.

But to me, it's just, I'm just very fortunate that this is just how my personality is.

I'm just curious about how people think.

Well, I mean, again, it's one of those things, out of your natural curiosity,

that's you.

Yeah.

And follow me?

Well, out of my

natural ADD, ADHD, hypersensitive, whatever they use when I was growing up.

I found it all serves me well.

Yes.

It all came out in songwriting.

It does serve you well, which is so important for people to hear.

Everybody wants to diagnose everybody and medicate them.

I had for sure ADHD when I was a kid.

Oh, please.

I think everybody that I know that's talented and creative has ADHD, whatever that means.

I tell all the parents, leave them alone.

Leave them alone.

Leave them alone.

You know,

there's two types of kids, and I keep trying to tell them.

There's academics.

They're great.

You want them to remember.

They can remember, they can recite, they do numbers.

And then there's the creatives.

Okay, the last thing you want to do is put a creative kid in a room full of academics.

The grades are not going to be great.

And you're going to worry them to death.

Put them in a creative school where

they're nurtured into their, yes,

they're going to work on math, and yes, they'll work on their science, but don't make that the priority.

No one to this day has ever asked to see my college degree.

No one to this day has ever asked me to see my high school diploma.

You understand?

So was I an A student, B student, C student, C student, babes?

I mean, I was right there on the borderline of disaster,

but I was just happy to be there.

But the point was, It's not important.

What did you end up being?

Who did you end up discovering?

How comfortable are you with yourself?

By the time you get out of elementary school, going into high school, you're so inundated.

And let me tell you what's wrong with Lionel.

Lionel has a problem with...

And if you listen to that crap, by the time you go into college,

it's not happening.

Right.

Now here's the joke.

They told my family, my mom and dad, ah,

truthfully, Lionel is not college material.

I mean, in other words, he should be creative.

You know who they forgot to tell?

Me.

The best thing they ever did.

They didn't tell me about that conversation, which means it was okay.

I didn't use that as my crutch.

Don't tell somebody they have a handicap.

Just leave them alone.

Just let them figure out what they actually like.

Because it's not a handicap.

In other words, I learned years ago:

a race car driver, he sees 200 miles an hour as, can I get this to go any faster?

Magic Johnson, the basketball goal looks like the size of the inside of

a building.

That's how big it is in his head.

To me and you,

it's a little tiny thing at the other end of the court.

You follow me?

Yeah.

Okay, so my point is, everybody has a unique brain and how they see things.

Quit trying to put everybody in this one little box.

If we can set up education where let those that see it in freestyle has a freestyle moment, we'll get more out of kids, we'll get more out of people if you just quit trying to condemn them and let them flourish in their lane, if you will.

And that's the special part.

Yes, okay, reading and writing, you got it.

That's important.

And now with AI coming and all this stuff, you don't have to do that anymore.

But I'm just saying it's there's some basics you have to have.

But then after that, I think we're crippling our kids because we're giving them too many gottas in a world that's constantly changing.

Yes, especially now.

Especially now.

But if your child is a creative, the problem is that is such a gamble.

Say, if your child wants to be a lawyer, you go, okay, well, you go to law school, you get your degree, pass the bar, get to work for a firm, you're a lawyer.

There's a path.

You want to be a singer, like, oh, Christ.

My recommendation:

get the law degree and then try to be a singer.

Have a backup backup plan?

Backup plan.

I mean, in other words, you know, in my case, I didn't have a backup plan.

I mean, I, luckily, my freshman year, I found that thing, and I mean, how did it work?

That's why I said to you, is it divine guidance?

It's divine guidance.

I didn't have a plan B, but I'm sure there would have been one if it was time for that to come into play.

Yeah.

If I told you how many lawyers now, excuse me, how many

lawyers started out as singers?

They wanted to be in a band.

If I told you how many people that are now on Wall Street, what do they do on the weekends?

They have a band.

You follow me?

Oh, yeah, there's a lot of that.

And so as time goes on, okay, so you're not the lead singer, but you're the lawyer in the record company.

Or you're the manager.

Or you're the agent.

You follow I'm saying that 99 million jobs under the word entertainment.

Right.

It's just that maybe you weren't going to be the star of the show, but you're in the show.

That's easy for Lionel Richie to say, though.

If you're that lawyer that wishes he was the star, it's a real problem.

I know, and trust me, I run into those guys who hate me.

Oh, yeah, Lionel Richie, oh, yeah, right.

No, I get it.

Of course.

I get it.

And I understand.

And by the way, I mean,

what I like about the book is everyone, just to let you know,

It sounds like, you know, I won, I won.

No, it was a struggle.

I'm the shyest guy in the world.

It was painful.

Joe, walking out on that stage, I said it was a freshman talent show.

The curtains open.

I went off with the curtains.

The only reason that I was on that stage, I didn't grow up with the guys in the Mystics.

They didn't know that Lionel Ritchie from Tuskegee, Alabama was the shyest kid in town.

They didn't know that.

These are guys that I didn't grow up with.

So they said, hey, hey man, you brought your horn?

Yeah, you want to be in a band?

Now you're talking to a kid who goes, Okay, we're going to do a baseball team.

What was the answer?

Okay,

we'll take Lionel.

Which, okay, let's do a basketball game.

Okay, all right, we'll take Lionel.

Let's play football.

Okay,

we'll take Lionel.

These guys came along and said, Hey, you got your horn?

Yeah, yeah.

You want to be in our band?

Yeah, right?

Right.

Bingo.

You mean you don't know about me?

You don't have to be defined by other people's ideas of you.

That's exactly right.

So they said, and they said, okay, here's the part.

And I, can you play the saxophone?

Yeah, man, I played saxophone.

I didn't tell them I brought the horn to school to learn how to play it.

But I could play by ear.

I could play by ear.

So unless we're reading music, I sound like I know what I'm talking about.

So,

it became one of those things.

And by the time I got in the Commodores,

I didn't tell anybody.

I'm the greatest hornholder that ever lived.

Are you kidding me?

So, just keep that secret and keep on going.

But, what I'm saying to you, just think about this for a moment.

I mean, it didn't start out with confidence, it came out with a sooner or later,

they're going to know I'm an imposter.

And slowly but surely,

who worked the hardest?

Me.

Because sooner or later, they're going to find out.

You got to catch up.

That I got to catch up.

So every time we had some time off, I'm interviewing Marvin.

I'm interviewing, you name it.

Anybody.

Tell me what you did to get the way you're going.

Then I found out nobody went to school to know what they know.

Holy crap.

Now we're onto something really serious.

Because then I had had some aha moments.

And so if I can't play it, I can hum it.

But most of the time I could just play it.

Okay, I can play this.

And as you learn, you grow quickly.

You have to learn quickly now, because we just signed the contract and said we're now on Motown Records.

I got to do a fast track here.

But

it happened in real time.

At any moment, they could have called up and said,

We're going to cut the group down to the most significant people in the group.

Rich, you're out.

Oh, oh shit.

So I had to make sure, let me make sure I get this.

I'm working harder than anybody you've ever seen before in your life.

And so that's how it's a whole life of

insecurity.

It wasn't secure.

And then you get your first song and you go, oh, okay, okay.

That was lucky.

Oh, okay.

Then the guy said, hey, kid, you got any more of those songs?

Yeah, yeah, yeah,

I got another one.

You go home and look at the guy in the mirror and go, you got any more songs?

Because I'm talking to myself.

And that's when you realize, okay,

out of fear, I got to come up with another song.

So everyone keeps thinking, this confident guy walking in, I got another song for you.

I got to tell you how many times I walked on stage, Joe,

and had a panic attack.

Right in the middle of the show, I'm having a massive panic attack.

Really?

Because I'm supposed to look like

I got this.

Wow.

When actually

I don't.

But eventually you did.

Well, that's what happened to Barbara Spreiser then.

That's what happened to...

I mean, once you realize as you start interviewing people,

the people who are scared to death on stage, and then they realize as time went on, they got used to it.

But I realized...

The thing that scares you to death is the thing you have to keep going forward on.

That's my dad's line again.

What's the similarity between a hero and a coward?

One step forward

and one step back.

No matter how much it scares me,

step forward.

And so each time I was not going to say I'm not going on stage, I go on stage and I'm going to sweat for two hours

and try to fake my ass off.

And now it's like second nature now.

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for 30 days free terms apply but at the time give me a break that's so important for young people to hear that a guy like you would panic.

Are you kidding me?

Oh my god, man.

Have you ever met the president before in life?

No.

Have you ever been on stage in front of a hundred thousand people?

No.

Have you ever been in a club with four people in the room looking at you, going, what you gonna do?

No.

I mean, you know, I mean, listen, I mean, it's that's why when I see these kids on American Idol, I don't know how they do that.

I came in with five other guys going, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right, right, right.

They're They're singing a cappella

to me

and Carrie and Luke.

Are you kidding me?

Excuse me, and 20 million people watching and a billion, 200 million

live impressions.

Get the frick out of here.

So I'm just saying, for me to be this authority, if you will, I can relate to every one of their heartbeats on that stage.

I know what they're fearing.

That's why when I get around artists, you don't try to blow them away with your importance.

First of all, do you need a hug first?

What do you need?

Let me talk to you for a minute.

Because let me talk you down because you're expecting too much out of us.

You follow me?

Yes.

Because

we're all students of Scared to Death.

Yeah.

If you're not, you're in the wrong business.

That's exactly.

And by the way, the book is not about how I won.

It's how I got,

not to the peaks, how I survived the valleys.

The valleys of insecurity is it, man.

How do you get up and go,

you're going to host the American Music Awards?

Dick wants you to do that.

Okay.

Was that a big, scary one for you?

Because you brought that up a couple of times.

That one bothered you a lot.

Everything scared me.

I know you're not expecting this interview, but I'm pleased.

Everything scared me.

We have to understand.

Lionel, we're going to do an instrumental for a movie.

It's called In This Love.

I'm only doing Kenny's album.

I'm only doing the Commodore's album.

But because it's Franco Zepharelli and

John Peters and everybody, I'm thinking, okay, I can do an instrumental, right?

Then, halfway through the thing, they say, well, we're going to shoot a scene where we just need the lady to sing a first verse to the person in the scene.

Can you write a first verse?

Yeah, yeah.

My love, there's only you in my life.

The only thing that's right, my first love, you're every breath that I take, you every step I make.

Thank you.

Okay, got it.

Is that it?

Yeah, right.

No, Lionel, we've decided now to make this a duet.

And we're going to get Diana Ross to sing

the lady's part.

Who do you recommend to sing?

The guy's part.

Are you out of your mind?

It's me.

What are you talking about?

I'm not going to recommend somebody else.

Were they beating around the bush?

I think they were.

I think they were backing me in because I told them I don't have time.

Right.

So they baited me by saying,

you know,

it's going to be an instrumental.

But by the time I got there, I'm thinking, okay, now here's the problem.

Diane's in New York.

I'm in L.A.

I'm doing two albums, Commodores and Kenny Rogers.

I'm not going to New York, and she can't come to L.A.

Where are we going to meet?

Tahoe.

Tahoe.

We go to Tahoe, but it wasn't even Tahoe.

Reno.

She's playing Reno.

So at the end of my Commodore night, 10 to 6, Kenny Rogers.

6 to 10, Lionel Ritchie.

And then

10 to 4 in the morning, I got to get on a plane, fly to Tahoe, and put Diana Ross on Endless Love.

Wow.

Now,

what you don't know when you're that part of your life, that you could die from having creativity,

too much creativity.

It was, I mean, it was so exciting, but at the same time, I'd never written a duet

ever.

So my first duet in life was with Diana Ross.

Do you think I was nervous?

Do you think I was nervous?

Do you think I was nervous?

I mean, I just kept praying, God, for God's sake, don't let me pass out in front of Miss Ross.

Oh, my God.

So, what I'm just saying to you, the title of the book could be Scared

to Death.

I got titles, man.

you know,

because it's

not,

it's the first time of everything.

I've never done this before

and so just imagine being put into a situation throughout my entire career wow where um

you know step forward lionel step forward step forward step forward step forward can you all can you all hear my heart beating no okay good good step forward step forward that's what it's been wow

Like I said, that's so important for young people to hear because I think they see someone with such a career and so much success, they go, well, well, that guy's just probably crazy confident and always has been and just talented, kissed by God.

No, no, no.

I tell people every day,

what this book did for me,

I discovered Lionel Ritchie.

I'm the Italian race car driver.

Yeah.

I never looked behind me.

I never paid attention.

And then all of a sudden, this book made me turn around.

and look behind me.

It's interesting because if you want to get things done in life, you kind of have to be the Italian race car driver.

But if you want to get this thing done in life, write a book about your life, that requires that introspective thinking and that recollection and that recognition of like, oh my God, what did I go through?

I mean, what was that?

I mean, you think about it.

You know,

you think, yes, I got the hit record at the same time my mother was dying.

Now, those two don't go together.

Right.

You follow me?

Yeah.

I'm in the world tour of my life.

It's the dancing on the ceiling tour.

I'm going to establish me around the world.

It's the all-night long dancing on the ceiling tour.

My father's dying.

Oh, God.

Do you follow what I'm saying?

I mean, so it's

okay, so now, how's dad doing?

Well, he's doing okay.

How's mom doing?

Okay, mom, mom, okay, mom.

Okay.

Should I come home?

Lionel, well, she's okay.

She's okay,

but I mean, she's okay, but I can cancel the tour and come home.

Okay, but I mean, but but how's she doing?

Well, my sister's there.

Mom's doing fine.

She's doing great.

But you don't realize she's in the decline, but you keep trying to balance this.

What do I do?

Yeah.

You know, and so it's

all happening while it's happening.

And so it's, you know, how do you kind of compartmentalize

the show

the writing

and real-life family

you know is it is it the reunion we're having the reunion okay

you know it's the class reunion it's the family reunion it's have you ever been to the family reunion no

didn't make the family reunion why Because when you're in the Commodores, when you really have your shows, it's Christmas, New Year's, all the holidays, all summer.

So if you happen to have

any kind of reunion during those times, you're not going to make it.

So it's the sacrifices.

How many barn fires did I make during college?

None.

Pep rallies?

No.

Basketball tournaments?

None.

But I'm the Commodores.

We're the Commodores.

You follow me?

Yeah.

So I always tell people, what comes with success are the sacrifices.

And even after you make the sacrifices, it's not guaranteed that you're going to win.

And at your highest of highs, like the all-night long days, you're dealing with your father dying.

Exactly.

So people are just seeing all they're seeing is you and thousands of people screaming and cheering when you're on stage all over the world, sold-out shows.

But you're dealing with your father dying.

Yeah, you're dealing with moments.

You're trying to pretend like you're not seeing it.

You know, there's a moment when you go home and your parents age right in front of you.

You never noticed it before.

He wasn't dying yet, but you could see the decline

until dancing on the ceiling.

You see a little bit more of the decline.

You follow what I'm saying?

And then finally, you realize, holy shit, this is not going to be good at all.

But you keep pretending like it's not happening, if you know what what I mean.

You kind of put that in that little compartment.

He's getting older, but he's okay.

He's okay.

He's okay.

He's okay.

The answer is: no, he's not.

And then from that, you think that everything else in your life is okay.

Is the marriage okay?

No, it's not okay.

Nothing's okay.

Why?

Because all priorities are going towards this new thing you've never experienced before, called

freaking hit record.

Going so low.

I'm leaving the Commodores.

I'm leaving the Commodores.

These are the only five guys I've ever trusted in my life.

So everyone keeps thinking, yeah, you went solo.

No, no, no, guys.

What was that word that comes with that?

Scared.

Fear.

Yeah.

So everyone keeps thinking, and then I decided to go solo.

Oh, shit.

What the fuck are you?

Who are you talking to?

Leaving the Commodores, too, is crazy.

Come on, man.

Crazy.

So the Commodores is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

And for you to say, I'm going to do it on my own.

No, no, that's not the way it was.

I'm not leaving you guys.

What are you talking about?

Leaving the Commodores is crazy.

I mean,

it almost can't.

It can't do it.

But what was happening behind the scenes?

That's the story.

What was happening behind the scenes was, and I understood, I understood, but still I didn't want to accept it.

It's the guys.

Yeah.

Okay.

The article read,

and then Lionel Ritchie sat down to the piano and started playing his classic hits.

Review.

What's a guy like the Commodore?

What's the guy like Lionel Richie doing in a funk band like the Commodores?

Joe, try to go back to rehearsal after that review.

Oh, God.

You got it?

Yeah.

Or now we've done Endless Love.

Now we've done Lady with Kenny Rogers.

Tell us, Lionel, how you started the group.

Oh, no.

I didn't start the group.

Oh, no.

And now you walk into a group interview, and they knock Clyde over, and they knock

Whack over the trumpet, Tommy.

Lionel, tell us about the band.

Oh, no.

So what I tried to do was come later.

By coming later.

Oh, you think you're big enough now where you don't have to be in the group?

Well, if I don't,

if I'm on time,

they'll disrespect you.

Right.

I got the feeling.

I got their angst.

Yeah.

You follow me?

And this is a different time in the world.

See, today you could elevate those folks through social media and bring them up with you.

Of course, of course.

Yeah, that's the beauty of today.

Of course.

If you're working with talented people and they're not getting shine, you go, hey, this guy's great.

Yeah.

Everybody go see him.

Yeah.

Check it out.

And then all of a sudden, boom, and now they get the love and the recognition.

But back then, everybody was on their own.

It was a dog-eat-dog world and it was controlled by gangsters.

I rest my case.

Gangsters.

The answer was: I realize one very important thing: throw the word degree

out of your vocabulary.

The music business.

A degree, a degree in music, a degree in business, a degree in what?

No, no, no, man.

This was street degree.

Right.

Street psychology.

Yeah, what did a guy tell me?

He said,

I'll tell you the best course I ever took in life, and this is a true story.

He said, you know, you schoolboys are funny, man.

He says, you all learn how to account for the money.

He says, we count the money.

And I said, okay, so what does that mean?

He says, somebody's got to teach you how to steal.

Oh, God.

No, no, no, no.

Best lesson I ever took in my whole life.

Because

once you learn how to steal the money.

You know how to stop people.

You know how to stop people from stealing.

Yeah.

There's so many stories of bad deals.

I mean, I was reading an excerpt from this book, and I don't know if it's true.

It's a guy that thinks that Hendrix was killed rather than he died.

And he thinks that what was going on was that Hendrix was leaving his management.

And his management had him locked up in some crazy contract.

They were stealing money from him and and they thought that he'd be more valuable dead since they owned the records

and that's this is this is like you coming from the 70s in the professional business from the 70s on dealing with that was the business back then yeah i mean yeah look at phil specter the guy's in jail now for shooting a woman in the mouth in his house these are This episode is brought to you by 8 Sleep.

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Yeah.

Gangsters.

Yeah.

I mean, the answer is

there is a

one moment when I looked into my mom and dad's face,

and I said,

hey,

they just stole $363,000 from me.

And my mother said, you leave those people alone and come home.

And I go, no, no, no, no, mom, mommy, mom.

It only cost me $362,000 to learn that lesson.

It's never going to happen again.

And I was so excited about it.

She looked at me and said, my son's crazy.

That is a crazy response.

But the answer is very logical.

You can lose millions.

You can lose billions.

Sure.

Okay.

So if it only took me 362,000, I got off light, man.

You understand me?

For sure.

And not only that,

can you keep your

life?

I mean, just think about it.

You know, when you go to the box office, everybody had a gun.

Now, here's the beautiful part about it, because I knew that later.

Nobody's going to shoot anybody.

It's just if you, how naive were you?

If you were naive and a little schoolboy, you could get shot and killed.

But as you started learning who the gangsters are,

that was just an intimidating factor.

But you had to be, once you knew them,

then they go, come on, Lionel, just cover us a little bit, you know.

That's even more disconcerting.

They become normal.

They become normal.

That's what gets weird.

That's what gets weird.

When you're around normalized gangsters.

That's exactly right.

And then you start, and then your mother starts meeting them on their way to Miami.

They would drive, and they stop by Tuskegee to see the schoolboys.

And here's a guy dead of homecoming season in a full head-to-toe mink hat, mink coat,

pink El Dorado.

Pink El Dorado.

Driving across the campus.

And you go to your instructors.

Yeah, this is my friend,

you know, Tall Paul.

And I got all kinds of things, got names formed out.

We had a, oh my God,

we had names.

You can't make this up.

Yeah.

You know, and how do you introduce them to the president of the university?

The answer is, you don't.

You don't do it.

You don't.

You don't.

God.

What was it like navigating that world?

It was.

Joe, one of the most exciting things ever.

Why?

I never experienced anything like this before.

Right.

I mean, I mean listen who does I listen you mean wait see see we played gangster

they weren't playing gangster right you follow me right so we are with the gangsters right and

it just became so

another

world

where what the guys say In our world, Arnold, it's not how long you live, it's how well you live while you're living.

Now, that's a profound statement from him.

I don't want to know anything

about that, but you have to listen, right?

They don't plan on living a long life,

but they plan on living well while they're here.

So it's nothing to say when you go back to New York for the next summer, whatever happened to so-and-so.

Oh, yeah, he got shot in December.

Normal.

Normal life.

That's normal.

He's leaving town or they're leaving town.

And so as time went on, it became a short-term

view

of a very long-term

problem

that has always been normalized because a part of

legal

is illegal or desirables and undesirables.

That's just a part of the city.

And here's what you find out the most important thing.

The desirables know the undesirables.

You go backstage and you go, wait, you two know each other?

What?

You know, but that's what happens in this world of cities, in this world of culture.

You know, everybody has that, what's that line I used to use all the time?

Who are you really?

Right.

And until

it is revealed later, in the music business, we see all.

Backstage is all.

Front row is all.

Right.

You follow me?

Right.

So you just have to understand

it's probably one of the greatest educations in the world because

everybody backstage is who they are,

not who they say they are.

Right, right.

That's got to be bizarre seeing like captains of industry mingling with gangsters.

Heads of enormous.

Hi, Phil.

Hi, Bill.

Hi, John.

Hi, David.

And by the way, it's okay.

But remember now, we're a street business.

right we're a street business and is it a street business because

gangsters always controlled a certain percentage of what's going on in the streets and cities or is it a street business because you don't really need an education to do it you do it on instinct and everyone needs it because it's really like what you're what you produce is like a drug you know i can listen to one of your old songs and it's it just puts me in a state of mind like oh bingo man it does something to you physically.

So they're, you know, they're in the drug business too.

Bingo.

I mean, they're in the cash business.

They're in the live entertainment and nightclub business.

Let's talk.

Vegas.

Right.

Founded.

Was a Harvard grad the founder of Vegas?

No.

Okay.

So what I'm saying to you, the problem that happened with all of these businesses we now have,

they legitimized it.

They messed the whole thing up.

Right.

Did the movie business start out with wonderful PhD guys from

these?

It started from the street.

Yeah.

You follow me?

And so what we are trying to do now is we've tried to legitimize all of this stuff.

Homogenize.

Pasteurize.

We want to do the whole thing.

The answer is, no, no, man.

We messed the whole thing up.

Because what it was is the fascination of, hey, Lionel, can I put my name on your album?

Right.

Why?

I got to move some stuff around.

But the answer is, I couldn't do it because I don't want to get in trouble from the, you know, you're kind of trying to dodge these guys.

But the point is, it's real.

So I care what I won't, I won't put a business like that together.

What I'll do is start the business.

Hey, what a great way to do that.

But the only thing wrong with that is,

as time goes on, someone asks a very difficult question.

I like to see the books.

That's a tough one.

Go deal with that one.

So you follow where we're coming from.

So

for us, for me, as they used to call us in Harlem, the schoolboys, you know, for the schoolboys, this was fantasyland.

Right.

Are you kidding me?

I mean, we didn't think we were going to die.

This was like the best course we ever took in the world from the originals.

Right, right.

This is not some hearsay.

And they adopted us as the schoolboys.

That's so wild.

That must have been just an insane experience as a young man going to Duncan.

You have no surreal.

You have, Joe.

You have no

idea.

And then,

you know, I mean, the days of

the days of Small's Paradise.

I mean, this is the club of clubs in Harlem.

The days of

Studio 54,

Michael Jackson's 21st birthday.

Give me a break.

I mean,

and back then, what I loved about private clubs was the reason it was private is because

if you can't keep a secret, if you weren't in the building, you can't find out what's happening in the building.

Now everybody's got a phone,

and everybody can't wait to take a picture or rat on somebody.

So you can't have a private club in the book because everybody's going to tell what they saw inside.

Exactly.

But back then,

once they let you in those doors,

first of all, it was a privilege that they thought that much about you to let you in.

And then once you got in, it was, you were in the,

you were in the club, man.

Wow.

God, it must have been so exciting.

And to be surrounded by so many extraordinary people at that time.

What was it like watching Michael Jackson explode?

You know, I talk about him and I talk about Elvis a lot and that if you look at it as a study of fame, that there's a certain level of fame that you achieve that's completely and wholly unmanageable.

Right.

And it's like the Elvis level, and I think he was like the first guy to really reach that level.

And then it was Michael Jackson who went to a completely different place.

Michael Jackson even surpassed that, which seems more insane.

Oh, yeah.

And there is that photograph.

That's at Studio 54 on Michael's 21st birthday.

Wow.

Yeah.

Wow.

And the mustache was thicker than ever, man.

It dripped down.

Y'all know I had to hook up on the side.

Come on, man.

You know, because he never had a normal moment.

No.

He was famous when he was a little boy.

I remember when ABC,

what show did ABC

broadcast?

That was, was it Ed Sullivan?

Was that

when they first hit?

Yes.

It was either Ed Sullivan or Dick Clark.

I think it was Ed Sullivan when they blew up.

But I remember him singing ABCs when he was just a boy.

And I was like, my God, he is so talented.

Like exploding in talent.

Exploding in charisma.

Like I'd never seen before.

You'd seen so many artists and so many people that were,

maybe it was because of the youth too.

It was like he's so free.

He was so free.

It's so much charisma and talent.

It was just insane.

Like, look at this.

Give me some of this.

I mean, come on.

Listen.

You can't play any of the business.

No, no, but

watch him jump out front if he does.

When you see the scene where he comes out front, oh, hey, this guy didn't know the clip.

But if he ever spins around one time, and you'll see

something that looks so simple to do, he got that from Jackie Wilson.

I said, where did you get that from?

He said, Lionel, that's Jackie Wilson.

But if you see him spin and come back to dead center,

now this is when he was just getting his wings to flap.

Wow.

How old is he?

Oh, he's got to be 12.

Wow.

12, 11, 12.

And of course, at this time, it was just ridiculous because

he knew what he was doing.

He knew exactly what.

I mean, this is the oldest soul you've ever met in your life.

Really?

I couldn't tell you.

And then they walk off stage and turn into 12-year-olds.

This kid turned into itching powder in your afro.

Or

see how you stand out in front of us, see how he points to you.

Now,

I know what he's saying right now.

Wow.

Right?

Okay.

God.

Crazy.

He was so good.

Crazy.

And if you see him with that,

I mean, I'll be honest with you.

I mean, we forgot sometimes

that this is going to happen.

Because when you're backstage or in the hotel room, that's a kid.

Right.

That's a kid.

Then as time went on, things happened where you could see it getting weird.

For example,

I'd go down the hall and I'd say,

where's Mike?

And they said he's in the room.

Okay, and meanwhile, what became normal was,

watch out, be careful.

The girls are coming.

Watch out, be careful.

Stay in the room.

The girls are coming.

Now, if you understand the Commodores, Jermaine was a bass player.

He hooked up with the bass player of the Commodores, Ronald.

The drummer, Clyde.

Follow me.

The lead singer, me.

So Michael and I bonded at 12, 13 because of the lead singer.

So I went down to check him out, and I'd say, where's Michael?

He's in the room.

I'd go in the room.

Hey, Mike, where are you?

Okay, where is he?

He's hiding in the bathroom.

The girls are out there.

I said, girls, wait a minute, there's no girls out there.

They sealed off the floor.

Come go with me.

Now, they got mad at me because I'd walk out in the hall and go, come go with me.

I said, You see any girls out there?

Oh, I thought they would, I thought they were in the hall, Lionell.

Okay, so, in other words, watch out, be careful.

But they're protecting the golden goose, ladies and gentlemen.

Do you follow me?

But the golden goose needs play period time.

He needs play time.

Right, he's still a kid.

He's a kid.

And so, you're freaking him out.

Jermaine, Tito, these, they listen, they go on dates, guys.

They hang.

They, you know, Michael can't hang downstairs

right and so as time went on you could see the slow shutdown

of trying to protect an incredibly talented person but at the same time he got special treatment

and so what I tried to do every chance I could was hey man come get you in the car come over here let's get it together you know right hang hang hang yeah you know and and so you know we went through that period of time where

we don't stay together long because once we, the Commodores took off, we didn't have that everyday time anymore.

Right.

You follow me?

But every once in a while we get together.

And, you know, there's a little rumor that's out right now that I want to clean up right quick.

They said in Lionel's book, Lionel called

Michael Smelly.

Didn't like the way he smelled.

I said, no, that's not what I.

So let me clean this up.

Okay, okay.

So imagine sending your clothes out anywhere, and you get half of your clothes back.

The other half of your clothes are souvenirs.

You follow me?

So what he would do is if he had a pair of jeans, right, he'd wear the jeans until they tried to run away from him.

People were stealing his clothes.

Stealing his clothes, right?

Oh, Michael.

Or

he'd walk in the house some days.

And I'm looking down at his feet and I go, Michael,

your shoes are flopping on your feet.

The two sizes too large for you.

I know, Lionel.

The guy we were in someplace, he gave me a pair of shoes, and I told him, thank you very much.

I said, but Michael, you could have gotten the shoes in the right size.

I know, but I didn't want to embarrass him.

So he's walking around with two sizes too large.

You understand me?

So he'll come by the house.

We wore the same size, right?

By the time he became that teenager.

So I said, go in the closet.

get a pair of jeans.

So literally, he changed clothes.

And by the way, he left left the clothes on the floor in the room and walked away from them.

In other words, he'd wear them until he got another pair.

And so we call him, Quincy called him, okay, here comes Smelly.

And so his nickname was,

for the insiders, was Smelly.

Follow me?

So when I said it in the book, everybody goes, oh my God, Lionel called Michael Jackson Smelly.

And I go, no, that's not it.

That's his name.

That was his name.

I revealed that that's hilarious but it's so hilarious that people are just stealing his clothes oh man please I mean the poor guy the kid when he was 12 13 14 sent underwear out it doesn't come back t-shirt out no t-shirt back socks out no socks back so it's what he basically had was a new pair of underwear every time he put a pair of underwear on It was new.

Wow.

Yeah, because it's just not going to happen.

It's coming back.

Michael Jackson's underwear is out there on eBay or something.

Can I tell you?

They stole it in the 70s.

That's an admission.

I stole it.

That's number one.

But by the way, very valuable.

Very valuable.

Probably crazy.

You know what?

I would love to put that out there.

Say no prosecution needed.

It was not going to happen.

Could you reveal yourself?

Because that's got to be the...

I would have that frame right away.

It's just so bananas that that was just ubiquitous.

They would just steal his clothes.

But it just makes sense.

Because what I was saying is about the Elvis thing applies to him plus, is that there's no roadmap for that.

There's no roadmap for navigating that level of fame.

And even you, as an adult, as a grown man,

when your peak of fame had to have been

so surreal that it's hard to not lose who you are.

Most people lose who they are.

If you say, oh, she went crazy, bitch, you would go crazy too.

God damn it.

You know what the fuck you're talking about?

Damn, right.

You're never going to superstar in front of the whole world or judging everything you do.

And then that thing came along called the phone.

At least, if they did see you, they caught you in that place.

Yeah.

But they only saw you.

But now they're looking at you everywhere.

So the press is everybody.

Just imagine that.

Okay, so

I mean,

in my case, I got used to it.

I got to admit.

I mean, of course, you...

I think something happened.

Or did I do it?

Did I, did I?

Oh, no worries.

Somebody was probably messing with it before you.

You pop out all the time.

I live with that sound.

All the time.

No, but what happens with me was

we went from, you could actually be

You could actually sneak.

I like that word.

Sneak.

Sneak around.

Sneak means you can look out.

Do you see anybody you know?

If you don't see anybody you know, you can sneak.

And then something happens one day.

You walk in a room.

You came in through the back door.

You sit at a table in the back door.

The band starts playing three times a lady.

Oh, my God.

And then everybody turns around and says, hi, Lionel.

Oh, no.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

And you thought you were just sneaking your ass off.

You ain't sneaking nothing.

You're trying to sneak around and get some dinner.

It ain't not happening.

And then the next thing that happens, which is you want to have a nice anniversary dinner,

right?

The anniversary dinner is the best dinner ever.

Romantic place.

And three ladies walk over to you and say, Hi, Lionel.

How are you?

We want to tell you we love you and you want to tell you about it.

Great.

That's great.

And then your wife says, Who are those ladies?

I don't know.

I've never met them before.

I know, but they seem so familiar.

What?

Uh-oh, okay, wait, this is not good.

Because now the romantic session just turned into, but now I've never experienced this before.

Remember now, this is new.

This is not,

I know now not to go to the romantic place.

You go someplace where you can have a great time.

But the point was, back then, this is first time happening.

Right.

And you're trying to be like all your other friends.

You take your wife out or you take your girlfriend out or you go to dinner and you have a, no, no, no, no, man.

It becomes now everybody's watching you and they can't wait to come over and say, can I have an autograph?

Right.

And now they come up and say, can we have a picture?

Right.

And so it becomes

very weird.

This is very weird.

Yeah.

You have to plan where you go.

Plan where you go.

And more importantly, be fully dressed before you leave.

Don't do something stupid, right?

But I mean,

I don't want.

I love it.

No, No, it's not a complaint.

I've been feeling a unique aspect of your life.

I've got it.

I'm a famous person.

I tell people all the time, and this is the truth,

I hope you like people.

I hope you like people.

Because if you don't, you're not going to like fame.

Right.

Okay?

They keep thinking they're going to be famous and rich.

No, no, no.

Do you like people?

Right.

Because they're going to be in your face and in your business with an opinion

all the time.

Yeah.

Now, you want to go to a recital with your kid, and it's your kid's piano recital.

I hope you like being famous.

Because while your kid is playing the recital, the parents are going to be asking you for your autograph.

Not the kids, the parents.

I made the mistake and decided I'll go to SeaWorld with my kid and I'll go by myself on the parents' bus.

You know who protected me on the whole trip?

The kids.

My kid.

Miles said, okay, we got to protect my dad because the parents are coming.

And everybody at SeaWorld showed up, and there's Lionel Ritchie at SeaWorld with his kid.

So I had four little kids surround me and go, I said, guys, I'm with them.

We're with the school, but I mean, it becomes, holy

crap, what the hell's going on?

It's annoying for them, too.

Of course it is.

But you can't have that moment

with your kids.

And

it's a big deal deal because at that time,

ABC, NBC, CBS, and a new station just came out called

CNN.

Other than that,

to see you, to have a sighting was like different.

Come on, man.

Yeah, no one knows.

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I couldn't imagine what it was like being famous when there's only four channels and the radio.

The Olympics.

2.5, 2.6

billion people

watching

live,

live.

Wow.

So I went from Lionel Ritchie to Lionel Ritchie all night long.

The end of my name became all night long.

Lionel Richie all night long.

Hey, there's Lion Ritchie all night long.

Every country in the world,

I became Lionel Ritchie all night long.

Wow.

What was that like performing

in front of that many humans?

What was that feeling like?

Was it different than a regular performance?

Joe,

it felt like a regular performance, but I had never in my life had

the world watching.

So I rehearsed it.

We did it, not realizing

it was the world, literally the world, watching.

And if you go back and look at that little podium, what was supposed to happen at the beginning of this was

Ronald Reagan was supposed to come out and greet,

had his speech.

I know I speak on behalf of everyone in America and the entire world, how proud we are of these fine athletes.

That was his speech, right?

Because that night there were death threats, they had, you know, they decided it's too risky to have him on the field.

Lionel, would you give the speech on behalf of all of America and the entire world?

Stop me where I am.

Oh my God.

So before I started singing,

I had to make my speech.

I know how proud we are

here in America and around the world of these fine athletes.

And now we're going to sing all night long.

But I had to give this thing.

Wow.

And I told them, I said,

that was the proud moment after I came off stage.

Before I went on stage was,

well,

Mr.

Reagan's worried about his life.

What about mine?

What's going to happen here?

You know, but it was so overwhelmingly,

you're talking about energy and adrenaline and

you can't beat 2.6 billion people live.

And you think Super Bowl was something special?

I'll tell you what this was.

Nobody, there was not another channel covering anything.

The whole world was watching this.

That's hard for people to imagine in this day of content.

Exactly right.

That will never happen again, unless it's the aliens are landing Monday at 8 a.m.

Exactly correct.

That's the one where the aliens landed.

Oh, that fake.

You're right.

I'm right.

And by the way, that's what happened.

That was the opening.

But what you don't see there,

that was the opening.

That's very good, man.

I hadn't seen this clip.

What was happening with that was

just before it started,

they sealed off the airspace.

And

I remember looking out, there were four helicopters facing out.

And the problem was you couldn't hear them, Joe.

And I kept thinking, I'm looking at helicopters, and I said, what's that right there?

And they said, they sealed off the airspace.

Nothing's coming into this place.

One, two, three, four.

Tell me, you couldn't hear the helicopters that were holding up the flying saucer?

I couldn't hear a thing.

How's that possible?

I don't know.

That's what's scary.

That's what I'm saying to you.

Military airfield.

Listen to flying home.

You understand what I'm saying?

And the answer to me was: okay.

I mean,

you understand me at this point?

This is 1984.

Yeah.

And Howard K.

Smith, remember the sports announcer?

I think was it Howard K.

Smith?

Howard Cosell.

No, Howard.

He was with.

Howard K.

Smith.

No, he was with

Wide World of Sports.

Okay.

And he kept saying, this is going to be an amazing night for you.

And I said, yeah.

Okay, not knowing what this was going to be.

And there was a kid that was backstage.

And he said, oh, my God, this is going to be the biggest night ever.

You know who that kid was?

Cuba Gooding Jr.

Wow.

He was one of the dancers.

Wow.

And from that moment on,

I kept thinking, what's going to happen?

I said, here's what I want you to do.

They're not looking at me.

Your parents are looking for you.

So get a signal.

Give them something where you wave your hand so they'll know that that's you.

But the truth of that was that was one of those interesting moments in time

where the world was watching and it was no other way to happen.

I woke up the next morning, drove down the street.

I could be five cars back from the traffic light.

And somebody passed me and go, Hey, Lionel Richie, all night long.

Lionel Richie, all night long.

Hey, it's Lionel Richie all night long.

Oh, God, what just happened?

Did you get your windows tinted?

I got everything tinted, babe.

I was wearing tints.

What you talking about?

That might be the biggest audience anyone has ever performed for ever, if you think about it.

Without dying, of course.

I mean, yeah.

I mean, it's, I don't know what that was, but it freaked me out

because

I went from slightly invisible

to fully visible.

Anywhere.

My friend got married.

I kept saying to him, you don't want me at your wedding.

He said, no, no, no, you have to come to the wedding.

I said, you don't want me at your wedding.

Here's what happened.

I decided to go.

There he is walking down the aisle.

There he is saying I do.

And there he is walking out with his lovely bride.

Every other picture after that is his mother-in-law with me, his family with me.

He's no longer in the wedding.

Every picture was me in his wedding book.

And I said, you don't want me at your funeral.

Nobody's going to ever know you left.

It's not going to happen.

What was that like for you, like psychologically, that giant shift?

Was that hard to manage?

Pain in the ass.

For the first couple of 10 years.

You know, you got to get used to this.

I mean, you know,

and also you have to understand, it becomes an annoyance to your friends.

Hey, Lionel, let's go down to the bar and get a drink.

Very simple.

That's like, you've been doing that for the whole life.

Right.

No.

You go down to the bar, the bar turns around.

Yeah.

No.

So now your friends become security officers.

Right.

You follow me?

Yeah.

Okay, this is not cool.

Right.

You know, and so

it becomes a little bit of a hassle.

So if you want to have your friends, you either have to bring them up to your hotel thing or you bring them over to the house.

There's no hanging out.

It's not going to happen that way.

And again,

you get used to it over time.

Did it fuck with you psychologically?

Hell yeah.

Are you kidding me, man?

Because a person relies on the perspective that they get from interacting with people if the majority of your interactions are bizarre.

And then finally, one day you say, okay,

you walk into the room,

prepare to talk to the room.

Right.

Just accept that this is what it is.

Muhammad Ali said it correctly.

We had lunch one afternoon in New York, and

it's time for it to be over.

And as we were having lunch,

there are people coming up to the glass looking in.

Oh, there's Muhammad.

There's Muhammad.

There's Lionel.

There's Muhammad.

There's Lionel.

Muhammad.

Okay, it's time for us to go.

And my security had me, and I'm ready to go.

I said, where's your security,

Muhammad?

He said, I don't need any security.

I said, what do you mean you don't need security?

I said, there's tons of people out there.

He said, no, no, no, no, no.

They'll take care of me.

And he walks out the door, and everybody was going, get back, get back, get back, get back.

It's Muhammad.

In other words, you

neutralize the room.

You can either make it a frenzy,

or you can, that's what Michael, God bless him, he couldn't get that in his head, but he couldn't.

Even if he tried to do that, his whole persona was the frenzy.

Yes.

He has to have the frenzy, otherwise that's not Michael.

Right.

You know, so I just kind of got to the point where you go into that Zen mode, and how do I get across the airport?

It's only one way.

You got to walk across the airport.

The only difference between you and Michael, though, was like you had a normal life

for a long time and then became an artist.

I knew how to navigate it.

it.

You got a slow drip in the initial days.

He had the explosion.

The explosion that he got was like, like I said, unlike anything anybody had ever seen before.

I can't imagine how he could defuse a crowd.

Like it's not even possible.

No, they would never swarm him.

Never was going to happen.

No.

Never.

The thing about Muhammad Ali, too, he was like one of the rare people that was loved by almost all humans.

Absolutely.

Especially after everyone realized he was right about the Vietnam War.

Of course.

And then he returns three years later, and then he makes his way to the title again.

Again.

He was so loved.

He was so loved.

And a beautiful person.

I mean, what I

and again,

trauma.

I mean, when you see him out in public, he was Mr.

Chopiz.

But he was carrying a lot.

He was carrying his belief.

He was carrying

his growth.

Losing the family, gaining another family, still being the icon.

I mean, think about that.

You know, is he going to win?

Is he going to lose?

With me, I just got to sing all night long again.

With him, he's got to win again.

And he knows he's starting to get brain damage.

There we go.

There we go.

There's no if, answer, or button.

No, no.

By the time he gets past Frasier and the first fight, and then

Foreman, just the Foreman fight alone, Ernie Shaver.

Every hit.

Every hit.

Every hit.

And then later in his career, career, it gets sad.

Yeah, yeah.

It's just like, there's very few people that transcend whatever sport they are and become like one of the key features of culture.

Yeah.

He was

magical.

Magical.

But for me, he was the hero.

Yeah.

Because this is a guy who found his freedom.

When you can walk out and go, I'm going to speak my truth, and I don't care.

Now, this is back in the days when Hoover was Hoover, and

the investigations were the investigations.

That's heavy, man.

I mean, this is not, this is life and death situations.

And for him to accept his role as the educator and also

the beacon of hope, you know, when I got that in my book,

when that man came up to me and said, you must survive.

Because you're our beacon of hope.

Wow.

There's a moment in time when you realize there is a responsibility here.

And whether you wanted to be the teacher or not, there are folks looking at you besides the folks in Tuskegee.

Yeah, and you've got something to share.

And that something is very valuable.

When someone can hear wise words from someone they love and respect, it'll shift your perspective in life.

And that's such a gift that you could give people.

But it doesn't come, I keep trying to tell people every day, it doesn't come with the word flawless.

Of course.

It comes with flaws.

How did you learn that?

You put your foot in the shit.

I mean, you understand it.

How do you know that?

And the only way to know it, the only way to understand it, you know, what you don't want to do is have someone describe to you life because they read it.

I want to know about life that you lived it.

Now, that's the person I'm taking my advice from.

Oh, 100%.

Yeah.

Like someone teaching you music that's never written a song that goes crazy exactly unless they're rick rubin less than rick rubin and by the way by the way by the way you said that's a strange brother boy

that i mean i got chills when you called his name no man and can hear he's the real deaf

so love him he's the real

that's a real that's a real

it's a real experience i went to rick's house one day and i said oh man this is gonna be great it's out by the beach walked in and I said, he said, sit right over there.

Rick, it's only one

beanbag

chair on the floor.

That's it.

That's the whole living room.

And I said,

where's the living room?

Or there's the terrace off of his bedroom.

Great.

He has the doors.

The doors open off onto his terrace.

Yeah.

They forgot to put the terrace out there.

So

it opens windows.

There's no terrace.

I think that's what he wants.

That's exactly what he wants.

He wants things off.

Ah, but I love him.

You're right.

He's such a genius.

I love him.

I love him to death.

Oh, God.

He sends me the wackiest text, too.

Well, he ain't going to change.

He goes down rabbit holes.

But he's awesome.

But there's people like him, right, that just have some special gift of they just hear things.

But that's that's the point.

That's the point.

In life, in life, if you have a chance to be around someone that's authentic unto themselves, at the same time, they're receiving.

It's not just songwriting.

There are people who are receiving messages and you go, do me a favor, just sit down and tell me the story.

Well, authors all talk about that.

I love, I love.

I mean, for example, every time I go to Atlanta, Georgia, who's backstage?

Greatest fan, greatest mentor ever.

Andy Young.

Okay.

Did he see it?

He saw it all.

Did he miss anything?

Nothing.

And he sits back there.

I've sometimes been 15, 20 minutes late to go on stage.

Why?

Keep talking.

Keep talking, Andy.

You follow me?

Yeah.

He's just spewing

the message.

And again, the answer becomes, hmm.

How do you feel about where we are now?

I'm optimistic.

Wow.

That's really heavy.

You know what I'm saying?

And so I just sit as a student, and that's what happens in life.

If you have a chance, who comes backstage to my shows?

Everybody.

And they sit there, and I have a chance to find out, hmm.

Now, they say you're this person.

And the answer is, no, they're not.

Everybody has a front

and a back.

Especially a public narrative.

You understand.

If you don't know them personally.

You don't know them personally.

And so with me, I have found the greatest parts in the world of this whole story is that they come as fans.

Everybody.

And that's the part that really makes me feel really great about traveling around the world.

Because

it gives...

Remember now, I know the world

of the world.

A lot of people know Detroit or they know America, but they don't know Europe or they don't know Asia or they

Joe, I'm 200 years old.

I scratched on everything.

But the point is, it's when I come home to write a song, I don't write a song based on is it going to be a song that can identify to America only.

I write a song that the world will understand.

Because you've been to the world.

I've been to the world.

So when I came home to write all night long, everybody looked at me like, you out of your freaking mind.

It's a freaking calypso.

Ain't no calypso music on the radio.

I said, there's a thing called world beat.

That's why every gangster, every politician, every school teacher, everybody, when you go on vacation, what do you hear?

It's called the world beat.

So when I play the world beat on anything,

you automatically feel familiar.

Right.

But now try to play that in the middle of funk.

Try to play that.

Yo,

what is Lyle doing?

You know, but the point is, you know, it's, when you travel the world and you come back home and you put a song out,

it's going to resonate to the world.

And as time goes on, it will resonate to America.

But I do from the world back in certain cases.

Oh, yeah.

Just based on your life experiences.

Yeah.

No, that's amazing.

Yeah.

But it's like a lot of great artists have done that.

Of course.

Broke out and where people are like, what are you doing?

Exactly.

Why are you doing something that's different than something that's been insanely successful?

Why would you mess with the formula?

Lionel Richard's story.

Lionel Richie crossed over and can't get black.

Oh.

You got me?

Okay.

So, in other words, wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

Three times a lady.

Yo.

Right.

That's a waltz.

Oh, right.

Little brother.

Right.

What you doing, man?

You copping out?

And the answer is, no, no, no, I'm not copping out.

But my answer was very clear.

If Mozart were black, would he be Mozart?

No, because he wouldn't be funky enough.

And you wouldn't have played him.

Also, why would anybody challenge authenticity?

If someone has an authentic idea,

it's who they are at this moment.

This idea that you're supposed to stay in this box.

Well, no, that's called now?

What?

An algorithm.

Okay, yeah.

You're following?

Yeah.

It's basically the same thing.

Everyone keeps thinking, oh man, it's going to take over.

No, it won't.

And hopefully, if you're smart enough and get out of the way of

this regurgitating over and over again the same goddamn song and go over here, it's got to be somebody that goes, I want to say this.

Right.

And no AI can tell you that.

It's going to, what's that word?

Touch people.

Yeah.

You've got to have something that touches someone.

Yes.

It can rhyme all day long.

Right.

But does it touch you?

Right.

That's coming from something else that's going to be the new thing.

And we've got to allow a place where the new thing can come through.

Yes.

Because otherwise it will become, it gets to be a hum.

Right.

And that's when you hear, we only play 98 beats a minute.

Well, you know what happens on the fifth song?

You turn the channel.

First song.

Second song.

Third song.

Fourth song.

Turn the channel.

It's formula.

Because you want to hear something that goes...

That's the trick.

Yeah.

Change up the ear.

Yeah.

But someone said, let's just keep it all the same.

So now I have to to ask the question.

This is the business people, right?

Yes.

These are the people who don't write songs.

Right, of course.

I mean, that's like going to a concert.

And the first song is, and the second song is, and the third song, you go, where are we going to eat?

Right.

Okay.

Something's got to switch up.

The lights have to change.

Something has to happen.

Right.

Otherwise, it becomes monotonous.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That struggle between the creatives and the money people always exists.

I'm telling you, it used to be wonderful because the creative people were the guys who owned the labels.

Right.

When did it switch?

When they started consolidating all the things.

In other words, they started buying up Motown and then they bought up A ⁇ M and then they bought up Mercury and then they bought up Polygram.

Now you've got this big giant.

Okay, so it's Warner Brothers, Sony, Universal.

We got them all.

And then the Independents and then the da da da.

And then it became one big

one big indigestion.

Yeah.

A bunch of people who just want to make money and they don't make music.

And then what if the guy says, I know how to sell

how to sell records lyl.

I sold 18 billion

hamburgers before I came here.

What the frick are you talking about?

I'm a business.

I'm a businessman lying.

Do you think it's complicated?

Now, can you give me your album in the third quarter?

Oh, God.

And I'm going, I normally give my album when I finish it.

Now, what are you talking about?

Third quarter means what?

Oh, no.

Can we have it in the first quarter?

If we're going to have it in the first quarter, it'll be fine.

Was this a slow thing, or did it just become overwhelming at a certain point in time?

Like, when did they consolidate?

The most irritating part of it was you start an album, and by the time you finish the album,

They sold the company.

Oh, God.

And the people who started the album with you are no longer there.

So it's a new group of people that's receiving the album that has no idea that you've been working on the album in the first place.

And then what label did they put that on?

Okay, they put Motown over on Mercury.

And then they put Motown Mercury over on Polydor.

Now you're sitting there going, okay, guys,

who do I belong to?

Who do I belong to?

Oh, no.

Oh, no, no, no.

It went so sideways that, you know,

and then as we slowly get further and further down the road of

lack of

communication,

half the time you go to another company, they didn't know what the hell have you done.

You know, they go, okay, now, you know, I've got a hip-hop group that love, I got a writer that can write with you, Lionel.

Who are you talking to?

I mean, you know what I'm saying?

I mean, you know, we got a writer that can write with you.

I don't need a writer to write with me.

What are you talking about?

I don't I got my own what it's like having somebody say I got a guy that can help Stevie

it's just imagine what are you talking about stage of your career someone coming along and telling you how to do it yeah yeah because they are a and r people from the last label

and so you get up there and you go and by the way whatever person they tell you they want you to write with that's the single

Oh, God.

So you go, okay, just hold on for a minute.

Everybody take a step back.

The worst thing I ever heard in life one time was that the guy said, I've got a surprise for Stevie.

He turned in his album, and I got, I've forgotten the artist's name and I can't think of it.

I got them to remix his album.

Oh, Jesus Christ.

Joe, you never heard from Stevie again for 10 years.

Wow.

I mean, come on.

First of all, if you know Stevie,

every check, he knows where that is.

Yeah.

And you remixed it before you put out the original.

Just imagine the gall to think you could do it better than Stevie Wonder.

But that's what I'm saying.

When you bring in non-creative people.

Who are doing cocaine.

I didn't want to say that, but the answer is a lot of it, a lot of blows.

They're doing cocaine, so they have some really unnecessary confidence.

Right.

And again, you have to understand something.

They know.

They know because, why do they know?

Because they said so.

And what I've learned is

there are two types of artist,

creative artist and created artist.

Okay, and these people are specialized in creating artists.

But if you happen to be talking to a creative artist, shut the fuck up.

Yeah, shut the fuck up.

Shut the fuck up.

Let them alone.

Shut the fuck up.

Yeah, could you imagine a group of those people and Prince brings them head

and says, This is my song.

They'd be like, Are you out of your fucking mind?

And by the way, they did.

They did.

And you know what he said?

Fuck you.

But you know what I'm saying?

Like, that's one of those songs where he's like, it's so great and so authentic and so insane.

And nobody had heard anything like that before.

That's what I'm saying.

Yeah.

A Madonna.

Madonna for the Pepsi commercial.

You know what he gave, what she gave him for the Pepsi commercial?

Like a prayer.

Right.

Right?

Black man on the cross with Madonna.

That's the commercial she gave him.

Right.

And I, they said, this is disastrous.

I said, it's Madonna.

What were you thinking you were going to get?

What would you think?

What did you think you were going to get?

She's giving him a real name.

But I mean, you see what I'm saying?

But yet, was the record successful?

Hell yeah.

Huge.

That's what I'm saying.

Massive.

Get out of the way.

Yeah, get out of the way.

Bob Dylan, get out of the way.

But people can't figure that out if they're not creative people.

They really genuinely think that they know better.

But they want control.

Yes.

And the answer to it is, I would rather have a company full of out-of-control artists

than a bunch of controlled pencil pushers and accountants that know nothing about people and what they like or what could titillate their sensibilities.

Yes.

Okay, it's got to be somebody who knows how to...

Well, are they going to be in clubs all night?

No, but we are.

Are they going to travel around the world to festivals and everything?

No, they're not going to be there, but we are.

Right.

So wouldn't you trust us when we come back home and say, okay, I got the shit?

It's just they think they know better.

And they have the money and they have the power and they want to keep control.

And one of the things that they really do enjoy controlling is controlling people that can do things that they can't do.

Ah, very true.

Yeah.

And that's the end.

And by the way, they know.

Yeah.

And they'll come up to you and what they call is giving you advice.

You know what it's called to me?

Insulting.

Right.

Yeah.

It's insulting.

Giving you advice is just so, it's just so crazy.

Someone who doesn't do it, giving you advice on how to do it.

You want to hear how that sounds?

Lionel, if I were you.

Oh.

And you know what I say back quietly to myself?

But you're not.

But you're not.

But you're not.

If I were you,

if you were me, you would be listening to you going, what is this fucking idiot saying?

If I came came back to you, Mr., you know, and I'd say, hey, if I were you, I would do this with the company.

And you look at me and go, kids, you don't know what you're talking about.

And that's the right answer.

Right.

But if you're talking to an artist,

by the way, we could run the company

if you let us.

Yeah.

But the point is, it's too late.

Everybody knows everything now.

And so that's the point.

It's called the PETA principle.

Everyone elevates themselves to their level of incompetence.

And now that you are who you are, you've now null and void yourself and the industry, whatever it is we're into, you've done it, it's done, cooked.

So my point now is, we've got a world now of specialists that knows nothing about the actual doing it.

Right.

It's a world.

That is crazy.

And they have so much power and control over artists.

And they have been successful in creating an artist.

But not even artists.

Everybody.

I mean, in other words, they have people who have never been in a successful marriage longer than 12 weeks giving you advice on marriage.

It's true.

Think about this.

You know, if I were you, I'd do this.

My answer is, if you ever want to find out about anything, don't ask anybody young.

Ask old people.

They've been through the blitz of World War II.

They've been through the depression.

They've been through the crisis.

Don't ask anybody young.

Why?

Because if it comes on the phone, you don't know anything.

If you want some real good advice, when I got to Motown, who did I ask first?

Marvin.

Right.

You think he knows?

He knows.

Crazy as he can be, but it doesn't matter.

He was the creative killer.

Who did I ask about a record business?

Barry.

Ahmed Erdogan.

Yeah.

Come on, guys.

These guys were the most incredible people on the planet.

And so what I'm saying to you is, right now we're taking advice from people who just graduated from nothing.

Right.

What are you coming from?

So that's where I only just find it very interesting that before I ask the question of anything, I go, how did you do it first?

And you said, well, this is my first time doing it.

Thank you.

I'll talk to you later.

It's just bizarre that the industry needs people like that.

It's just a bad setup.

It's a bad setup.

It's like it doesn't maximize creative output.

It gets in the way.

Well, let me tell you, we're so far down the road now because

what happens now is it all became legitimate when I say that.

Not that I was

a nice fan of gangsters,

but it's something rewarding about giving someone a chance to

play.

Here's some money, go play.

Now, what's going to happen is he's either going to win

or you're going to lose.

But if you win, you might get a group called the Beatles.

If you win, you might get a group out of San Francisco called Slying the Stones.

If you win, you might get a group called The Temptations.

If you win, you might get Diana Ross.

If you win, you might get a Taylor Swift.

You know what I'm saying?

In other words,

just let the artists go.

Right.

Let them go.

And that goes with everything.

You know, there's people who, like I said, in school, they're incredible academically.

They can recite to you everything that has ever happened and will give you every

backup to that.

Now that we have chat GPT, it's not so much the same.

But the point is, and then there are those that go, I wrote a poem, lucky to hear it.

Or I read a book, I want you to hear about it.

I have an idea about

going to Mars.

What?

I mean, you know, you just, I mean, the first thing is, before you become a genius,

you have to take the responsibility of being an absolute idiot to everybody around you.

An idiot is when you came up with your first idea.

Lionel, where do you hear all your songs from?

I hear them from the other side.

Lionel's an idiot.

Where did I say that?

On a university campus.

Now, when the world finally becomes attuned to your frequency,

Oh my God, you hear the word genius.

The answer is, no, I'm still the idiot that suggested it from the beginning.

Well, I think if you said that today, though, don't you think more people would be inclined to listen to you saying the songs, the ideas come from the other side?

But now, yes.

But now, yes.

Because I can explain to them,

because why?

They trust me now.

But even if they didn't know you now, I think that idea is more expensive.

Well, yes, yeah, now, yes, you're right.

Because now we've opened that channel up now to where people can talk like that.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

But back then,

1970, 69, 68,

talking like that means Lionel is on either LSD

or some kind of tab.

He's on some kind of tab, yeah.

But he's definitely not in his right mind.

Yeah, or he's mentally unwell.

He just AIDS and his brilliance, but he's crazy.

He's crazy about a genius

maniac.

But he won't be here long.

Right.

That's like Kanye West.

Yeah.

We'll get genius maniac.

We'll get him to rehab as soon as possible.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

I mean, that's what they were doing a lot of Kanye's career, just trying to manage his insanity that also led to this insane creative output.

Yeah, I mean, I'll be honest with you.

Richard Pryor, I use this as my perfect example.

I mean,

I would just wait for his next what's coming out of his mouth.

Right.

And then one day he sobered up

and couldn't get funding.

And I kept thinking, what just happened?

Well, he went to rehab.

Well, yeah, I know, but where's the

edge?

And so, you know,

there's a word for it, there's a phrase for it, where you learn your craft under the influence of.

And if you happen to not know how you got there off of the influence, that when you finally get off of it, you don't know how to get back to it

unless you go back on it.

Even if you do, it's a different place.

Like, one of my favorite examples of this is Stephen King.

I love

early Stephen King.

If you listen, I mean, if you read rather

The Shining,

Tommy Knockers, I mean, Misery,

Cujo, Pet Cemetery, but this was cocaine, snoring, beer, drinking out of his fucking mind.

Like, he wrote entire books and doesn't remember anything about writing them.

To be in their presence

is one of the most incredible things you'll ever see and hear and experience in your life.

Again, I got to the point where if I was just allowed in the room,

remember now.

I mean, I was allowed in the room

when

Marvin and Stevies and...

God, I couldn't even.

Did you grasp that historically at the time, like what that meant?

I couldn't breathe.

Did I grasp it?

I couldn't breathe.

Wow.

I mean, do you know what this was?

This was the gift of life.

I mean,

that's Barry Gordy, right?

You know what Barry Gordy was back in the day?

God.

He existed on the moon somewhere.

You know, Hollandoja and Holland.

These were, you know, this is there in the moon.

Aretha Franklin and Ahmed Erdogan and

King Curtis.

This is the moon people, man.

Sammy Davis Jr., Sidney Poitier.

These are moon people.

And to have them sit in a room, not in a seminar, in their living room,

saying, you know what, let me tell you a story about, whoo.

Now there's one part of me going, mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

And then there's another part of me going, holy shit, I'm sitting here listening to a freaking Barry Gordon Sydney party.

You follow me?

Yeah.

How did I get in that room?

So another title was going to be was Fly on the Wall, but I just didn't want to be a fly.

But the point is, I mean, I had the opportunity one-on-one,

not in a TED talk,

but one-on-one with some of the greatest

people of our time.

How well did you know Richard Pryor?

Oh my God, man.

Richard was wonderful.

I mean,

well.

I mean,

Paul Mooney,

Richard Pryor,

and...

I knew Mooney real well.

I mean, this is,

again,

totally

out of his mind.

Totally funny.

But more importantly, totally in charge.

I mean, he knew his...

I saw his frustration because they were trying to deal with him commercially.

They discovered that maybe he might might be able to be on network television.

Wrong answer.

You know, but

he was so gifted

in presenting the street struggle,

and you laughed about it.

Miss Rudolph was Miss Rudolph, man.

I mean, when he said Miss Rudolph, everybody knew what you're talking about, you know, or you know, they put me in jail for shooting my car.

I mean, you know,

but

to know him off

camera, to know him off the stage, you know, what I found a lot about my

comedian friends is, you know, there's a, to make things funny,

you have to take dark things

and make them funny.

But they stay most of the time in darkness.

And Richard was in darkness a lot of time, a lot of time of his life.

Yeah, that was surprising to people.

You know, when you see a guy that's so funny and so loved, you assume his life must be amazing.

But he was struggling all the time.

He struggled all the time.

I mean, he later revealed that, you know, the story from JoJo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling, which is like loosely based around his life,

he accidentally caught on fire.

But in real life, he set himself on fire.

Of course he did.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean,

the book, the book that I just finished,

it's the struggle.

Everyone keeps saying, well, did you start off in the rural South?

Forget the rural South.

I was struggling with myself, which is what everybody struggles with.

So the answer is,

it's not that I made it.

It's who was I struggling with?

You were struggling with yourself.

And all of us are struggling with ourselves.

That's what made the book, to me, so meaningful because people will walk back to me and go, Lionel, I felt the same way.

Now, you know what that's called in my business?

A hit record.

When you write a song and everybody comes back to you and says, man, I was feeling the same way.

You got a hit record.

Yeah.

Well, when you can write in a book, Vulnerability, where you can write in a book, Fear, where you can write in a book, I'm not sure, I wasn't sure, I was scared.

They go,

how could you be scared?

do all that?

And the answer is, step forward.

Yeah.

Step forward.

Scared to death.

We're all scared to death.

Are you kidding me?

You know, we don't know what we're doing from day to day.

It's just we work it out.

Yeah.

But it's not where we, all this confidence and crap.

No, no, no, no.

And as time goes on, you kind of develop a little, okay.

And it's called filling out your skin as time goes on.

You get a little bit more confident in the fact that I kind of know what I'm doing.

Becoming a professional.

There you go.

But for the beginning stages of your life, you don't know what the hell you're doing.

Yeah.

Come on.

Yeah, you can't.

Yeah, but it's just very valuable for people to hear that from someone that's very successful.

People just look at a guy like you and go,

he's just Lionel Ritchie.

I mean, it's just, it is what it is.

You know what I mean?

Must be nice.

I know.

That's how they look at it.

I know.

They don't think of, oh, that's a bizarre path that a human being took to superstardom.

It's a strange.

And at any one point in the life, I could have turned around and said, I quit.

Yeah, and that's very valuable for people to hear as well.

And people will, in the fact that you're so honest and you're so open about things, it helps so much because when people read that, they'll think of themselves and the moments where they've struggled or the moments where they've been unsure of themselves or not sure what to do or wanted to quit and didn't.

It's like this is universal.

It's universal.

And the difference between a Lionel Ritchie and

Sandy Smith out there who's listening to this is that Sandy Smith hasn't started taking her first steps.

And that if she keeps going down that line, she could be her.

yeah you know it's just yeah it's just keep going it's the there's there's talent there's gifts of god there's all sorts of things but one of those things that they all have in common if you know of them it's they kept going yeah like jimi hendrix clearly obviously was godly gift absolutely gifted just gifted something special yeah also worked like a motherfucker like the work the work ethic was insane has to be yeah think about how many records nas wrote they were releasing records for years after his death.

Years after his death.

Of course.

Because he never left the studio.

He just worked.

Of course.

That's how you get that going.

That's how you get there.

I see Biggie on the streets in Brooklyn when he was 17 years old.

You're like, oh, okay.

Okay.

With sheets of paper,

rapping with perfect flow at 17.

You're like, okay.

I get it.

You just go.

Or you get around major corporate leaders and you say to myself, oh, my God, you built this company.

I say, I was bankrupt 12 times.

You know what I'm saying?

Oh, you were?

All you remember was the smash.

But you don't remember, oh, what?

What are you talking about?

In other words, how many times can you take no?

How many times can you take rejection?

How many times can you go, I quit?

And then you wake up the next morning and go, I got another idea.

Yeah.

Because the world is designed to make you go away.

Right.

It's very simple.

Don't get psyched out.

I tell the kids on American Islands, don't get psyched out.

Just because this person can hit every note perfectly and you have this cracky voice,

but I can't remember this perfect voice, but I can remember your cracky voice.

That means you've got a personality.

This is a great karaoke singer over here.

Right.

Perfect notes don't work.

Verse is something authentic that resonates with you.

There we go.

There we go.

Yeah.

I want to know what your little quirp is.

What's that?

What's that thing?

Yeah.

You know, Cardi B is Cardi B for a reason.

Right.

Do you follow what I'm saying?

Now, there's a lot of folks that came along.

Right.

Cardi B is Cardi B.

I mean, I'm just using her as a one example.

But the wonderful thing about it is she came with a personality.

She came with a thing.

Yeah.

You know,

and

to me, that's the quality I'm looking for, not only in the music business, but in life.

Okay, so you're rich.

Okay, so, but who are you?

What's your thing?

What's your, who are you?

Do I like being around you?

Do I like being around you?

Are you, tell tell me what you, what is it?

Otherwise, you're just rich.

Okay.

Yeah.

And you got stuff.

Okay.

But who are you?

Right.

You have a shitty foundation in your house.

Exactly, right.

You have a beautiful house on a shitty foundation.

Or you got no taste at all.

There's a lot of no taste.

Well, listen, Lionel, it's been a real honor having you on here, man, and a real pleasure.

And I really enjoyed talking to you, man.

It's a fascinating conversation.

And I really applaud your honesty and your insight into your life.

It's amazing.

It's really awesome.

Well, I got to be honest with you.

There's an old expression that goes, sometimes you don't want to meet the person

because they may not be what you thought they were.

You know,

you're exactly who I thought.

Oh, thank you.

Yeah.

No, I mean, because, you know,

you mastered this personality where you can sit down and talk to just about everybody.

And on the days when you struggle with trying to make a communication with somebody and it doesn't work out, I go, I understand why it didn't work out.

Because, you know, sometimes you have a block right in front of you.

You go, okay, I'll just have to deal with the block.

But I've enjoyed this, man.

This is fun.

I really have a lot of fun.

Thank you.

And best of luck with everything.

And you've already had best of luck.

No, no, no.

No, that book.

Come on.

Truly, Lionel Ritchie out now.

Did you do the audio version?

I did not do the audio version.

Somebody else did it?

I did.

I swear to you, I did not do it.

how

well you know what it was if you know Lionel Richard okay let me tell you something

for the time it took me to write this book

took two and a half years

okay so let me just let me be honest with you you don't want me to read this book because I'd go I don't want to put that in.

Guys, can I change that one line?

You follow me?

So I keep creating.

I keep

creating.

And so it's just one of those things.

Did you dude who read it at least sound a little like you?

Oh, no, wait, wait.

I'm drawing a blank.

Why am I

drawing a blank?

Blair Underwood.

Blair.

Jeez.

Blair Underwood.

Okay.

Blair Underwood.

I love.

First of all, we kind of

had kids in common.

Our kids went to the same school.

So when I say we had kids in common, no, we didn't have the same thing.

No, no, but we had kids at the same time.

And so we met back then.

But what I love about him is he understands

the,

I call it the middle-class approach to

my life.

In other words, he understood the fact that did we grow up in the rural South?

Did we struggle?

No, no, it's not that kind of struggle.

We had a struggle of understanding our identity and how to take that forward as artists.

And he understood the humor.

I love his voice because it's not so identifiable that if it was a Morgan Friedman, I'm just giving that as a perfect example.

And I love Morgan, but it's too identifiable.

I want somebody who can tell a joke and it sounds like Lionel.

Right, right.

You know, he had that quality.

And so when I said, no, no, no, I want you, we hit it off.

Well, his voice, you'll hear it.

Understandable.

You'll understand.

Well, thank you, Lionel.

Thank you again.

And best of luck again with everything.

We appreciate it.

Thanks, sir.

It was awesome.

Thanks.

Bye, everybody.