Richie finds groove with new creative partners

09/10/2006 8:46 PM, Reuters
Gail Mitchell

Lionel Richie, one-time member of '70s soul group the Commodores, is back on the R&B charts for the first time in 10 years.

His single "I Call It Love" is No. 23 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. Also claiming No. 1 on the Adult R&B chart and climbing the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 70, the track is the lead single from Richie's third Island Records album, "Coming Home," which hits shelves Tuesday (September 12).

But as a member of the Commodores, Richie was no stranger to the R&B charts. The Tuskegee, Ala., act scored its first top 10 hit ("Machine Gun") in 1974, followed by six No. 1s, including "Slippery When Wet," "Easy" and "Still."

Breaking away as a solo artist in 1982, Richie garnered more R&B No. 1s -- and even more mainstream acclaim -- with "All Night Long," "Hello," "Say You, Say Me" and other chart-topping hits.

His heralded style-changing skill with pop and country, though, sometimes sparked accusations that he had forsaken his R&B roots. Of late, despite his stellar career, the Grammy Award- and Academy Award-winning Richie was becoming best known as Nicole Richie's dad.

The last time he put a song on the R&B/hip-hop chart was in 1996 with "Ordinary Girl," which peaked at a pallid No. 76. And aside from a 2003 million-selling compilation ("The Definitive Collection"), his first two Island albums, 2001's "Renaissance" and 2004's "Just for You," have sold less than 500,000 copies combined, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

ELEMENT OF SURPRISE

Enter Island Def Jam chairman Antonio "L.A." Reid , fresh from Mariah Carey's multiplatinum return. Now it was Richie's turn to come home.

"The whole concept was about surprise," Richie says. "Shock value has always been a wonderful thing in my career because of songs like country-flavored 'Sail On' and pop ballad 'Three Times a Lady."'

Accompanying Richie "right down Commodore Lane," as he describes it, were Jermaine Dupri, Sean Garrett, Dallas Austin, Raphael Saadiq and Richie musical director Chuckii Booker, among others. Whereas some might write this off as another old-school artist simply leaning on more contemporary, hit-making shoulders, Richie dismisses that notion.

"I'm a writer first," he says. "And to get the real me on record, I wrote with them. They brought me things we experimented with, and my job was to skew it back to me, to build the bridge between the generations without sounding too ridiculous. Working on this album reminded me of writing with the Commodores. We bounced off one another creatively: They brought the R&B thing; I had the pop and country flavor."

Daughter Nicole, of "The Simple Life" fame, appears with Richie in the "I Call It Love" video.

His 16-city Coming Home tour kicks off October 27 in Detroit and wraps up November 25 in Oakland, Calif. He is also slated to perform with Lyfe Jennings on Wednesday (September 13) on the new AOL entry "The Bridge." An offshoot of AOL's popular "Sessions," "The Bridge" pairs legendary artists with rising talents.

Richie says he's still having the same fun he did back with the Commodores.

"Our acting crazy together brought us 'Slippery When Wet' and 'Brick House.' Why get serious 30 years later? You have to keep a light heart in this business. This album is a 200-year-old man having the greatest time of his life."

Reuters/Billboard