Review: Lionel Richie at the BBC Special
When you've had enough of hip-hop, punk or whatever passes for music nowadays, check out one of America and the world's leading songwriters care of Auntie Beeb.
Creative Commons
Lionel Richie in concert, April 2011.
There is really not a lot to write about this; the programme is currently on
iplayer, but watch out for it and similar stuff on YouTube. Running to nearly an hour, this was continuous music: no interviews, no breaks, a few
SongFact type details flashed on the screen, and Richie, Richie and more Richie - plus one track by his former band The Commodores without him.
The tracks are performed in no particular order: much of it from a concert at the BBC's Maida Vale studio from 3 years ago, and older archive stuff: uptempo, ballads, the man with a microphone and at the piano.
Richie may be a fine performer but it is as a songwriter that he excels, and although much of the material here can be dated from 1980s onwards, this sort of music is timeless, and will be around long after Richie himself and anyone reading this have departed this Earth.
One disappointment, Richie's finest uptempo track,
Running With The Night from the monster 1983
Can't Slow Down album failed to materialise, but even the BBC can cram only so much talent into one hour.
