He’s one of the most famous singer-songwriters in America. But Lionel Richie says he can’t read music. The author of such hits as "Easy,” “Endless Love,” “Sail On,” and “Three Times a Lady,” can’t explain how he does it though he landed No. 1 hits on the charts for nine consecutive years.
“I knew what a C-note was,” he says, “but I couldn't figure this thing out. So, I found the gift. The gift was I can play what I hear, I just can't read it,” he says.
Richie will be honored with the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song on May 17 with a star-studded celebration via PBS. Though he has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, he insists he doesn’t write his music alone.
“The songs are all God, I will always say that, because if I told you that I sat there and it just — but it did, it just came out,” he shrugs.
“I'd love to explain to you where and what and how, but I was inspired. I was divinely guided. And I'm here to this day trying to explain how I got here. But it really is quite a ride.”
The ride began when he was a kid living on the campus of the Tuskegee Institute. His dad was a systems analyst for the Army and his mom a teacher.
“Then the Tuskegee Airmen came along,” he recalls. “I must tell you we were born into that group. We were raised by the Tuskegee Airmen on that campus, not knowing how famous they were. And of course, my dad was in the Army, and of course the Army — it was basically a giant military base,” he says.
“My struggle was I grew up on that Tuskegee community. The struggle was I didn't have to hide from my mom and dad if I did something right or wrong — I had to hide from the whole town. So, you have to understand, the struggle was not getting caught. If you did get caught, you were done, in terms of the whole town knew you were caught, because it was that simple,” he says.
“And more importantly, they set a standard for what we were to be because they knew that we were their hope for the future. And so, they put a very hard standard on us that we didn't understand as kids.”
Hyperactive as a child, he says he always had trouble paying attention. “Back in the day there was a thing called ADD or ADHD, but we didn't know what that was. That was just called having a slow part of reading. ... I am going to give you the secret to my whole upbringing. If I had to use one phrase that I can remember that kind of serves me well for the rest of my life, is, ’Lionel, would you like to join the rest of the class?’ In other words, I was NOT in class. I was daydreaming,” he says.
It was only much later that he understood what master those daydreams served.
“I didn't realize that daydreaming — that drifting off — was that other place where I write songs. But I didn't know I was a songwriter. So, I could not keep my mind on what was happening in front of me to save my life,” he says.
“Songwriting was happening (to me) every day. I didn't realize that the words I was thinking about were actually poetic until I started writing it down. ... I was writing songs as a kid in the early parts of my life. When I say that, I mean, 15, 16."
Richie played the saxophone in school and earned a bachelor’s degree from Tuskegee in — of all things — economics. “I was an accounting minor, which was going to be the boring parts of my life. It was my home,” he says.
“So, I go back to Tuskegee to go to the university, ran into a guy named Thomas McClary, who said, ‘I understand you brought your horn to school. Would you like to be in a talent show?’ The rest is history. From there I fell in love with something I really like to do, having no idea of HOW to do it.”
When he was 19 he joined the band, the Commodores, as a singer-saxophonist. The group eventually was signed by Motown as backup for the Jackson 5.
“I didn't put the whole puzzle together until I went to Motown and joined Motown and was a signed artist to Motown,” says Richie. “It gave me access to Stevie (Wonder) and to Marvin (Gaye) and Smokey (Robinson). ... What I learned from them was: ‘Can you hear it?’ ”
At first, Richie says, he was “hearing” purple prose. “When I was first learning how to write or actually starting to write, James Anthony Carmichael was my co-producer. And I came in thinking I would be ever so flowery with my lyrics, and I said, ‘And when the wind blows across the blah, blah, blah,’ and ‘the sea and the air are all’ — He said, ‘Lionel, stop. What are you trying to say?’ I said, ‘I miss her.’ He said, ‘Write that down.’
“And I went to another flowery line. He said, ‘What are you trying to say?’ And I said, ‘And I would love to have her back.’ He said, ‘Write that down.’
“What I found out was that the simplest parts of life are the parts that people gravitate to,” he says.
While Richie’s walls are trembling with awards, the Gershwin Prize venerates a living musician's lifetime achievement. “Just to receive this honor, I am kind of taking a deep breath in and thinking about my grandmother, who in her age and time, in the early 1900s, was ... a concert pianist. Now, think about that ambition back at that time. And of course, to have her grandson actually end up where I'm ending up now, it's pretty astounding. I must tell you I am quite humbled by this honor.”
The Enterprise salutes a new captain
Imagine the spaceship Enterprise BEFORE Capt. Kirk. That’s what Paramount+ is launching Thursday with “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.” The 10-part series stars Anson Mount as Capt. Pike, the chief of the ship. But it also features a budding Doctor Spock (here he’s "science officer"), played by Ethan Peck.
Mount, who was so good in “Hell on Wheels,” and has played everything from an ER physician to a Civil War vet, says, “I tend not to think about genre too much. Now, there are definitely tricks of the trade in all of them. But the rules for acting and scene work, engagement, they always have to remain grounded in the same truths.
“I grew up a ‘Star Trek’ fan. But there was something about ‘Star Trek’ that was so far off the radar for me. It wasn't even on my bucket list. I just never thought I would end up captaining the Enterprise. It's insane when you think about it,” he says.
“Every single day I'm on the set — I'm not exaggerating — is both disbelief and a feeling of tremendous gratitude. Which is one of my little secret parallels to the character of Capt. Pike, who — let's face it — if you're going to stare into the face of God, the universe, whatever you want to call it, every single day, you have to have a healthy dose of humility and appreciation and gratitude. And I think that those are the greatest qualities in Capt. Pike. So, if I can live up to him at all, it's through my appreciation of being a part of this universe.”
'Staircase' mounts to high drama
Guilty or not is the question that keeps erupting in the case of the death of Kathleen Peterson. She was found at the bottom of the staircase in her Forest Hills mansion and thus began a growing suspicion that maybe her husband, Michael, helped that tumble along.
“The Staircase” was well chronicled in the docu-series of the same name. Now HBO Max is submitting an eight-episode drama on the subject. Bearing the same title, the show premieres Thursday.
British actor Colin Firth plays Michael Peterson (who was convicted of her murder and later released). “I think this was unique in my experience in that it’s hard to construct a biography of a character that's, to some extent, hard to understand,” he says.
“And there was so much material in terms of obviously the documentary, outtakes from the documentary, interviews that he’s given, stuff he’s written, that that was the sort of hunting ground in a way. That was the source material,” says Firth, who won an Oscar for “The King’s Speech.”
“I was less interested in finding a way to mimic anything or assimilate his mannerisms for the sake of it. It’s just I was looking for ‘codes,’ ” says Firth.
“I was wondering what you can find out about a person by the way they speak, by the way they phrase things, by means of body language, and that sort of thing. And so I was very focused on that, and so much so that the cultural aspect came second, really. It was less to do with sounding American rather than English or putting him on the map. It’s kind of just exploring what I had, which were his words and his way of delivering them. I mean that, in the end, the job of an actor is entirely that.”
Bosch is back on the job
The intractable Harry Bosch will be back on TV Friday when the spin-off, “Bosch: Legacy” premieres on Amazon’s Freevee. By now Bosch has quit the police force and is serving as a private eye helping his former antagonist, the dogmatic attorney Honey Chandler (Mimi Rogers).
Titus Welliver plays Bosch with such a Bogart-like veracity that he should be first in line for an Emmy. “There’s an aspect of Bosch which is deeply appealing to me, he has a tremendous vulnerability,” says Welliver.
“This is a guy who sustained a really traumatic childhood; we get glimpses into that in the pilot and the readers of the books know his backstory is deeply painful. But I think that anybody who has a job that faces the darkest parts of society and sadness can’t go untouched by that. So, there’s that great righteousness that Harry has being the advocate. He speaks for the victim, and he’s driven by that to seek that justice. But he’s a deeply haunted character. He’s seen too much. I don’t know if that’s something that ‘actable.’ ”
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