American soul singer Lionel Richie became famous for his soft voice and sweet R&B hits that made it to the pop charts. As part of the European tour called Say Hello To The Hits, they will return to Prague’s O2 arena after 13 years, where they will perform on July 6 next year.
Tickets starting at 1,790 crowns will be on sale from Friday, the organizing agency Live Nation informed.
Lionel Richie, who turned 75 in June, started his career more than half a century ago. In 1968, while still studying, as a budding singer and saxophonist, he was at the birth of the band Commodores, which wanted to repeat the success of the better-known Jackson Five.
At first, the group focused on dance funk, but Richie gradually directed it towards soul. In the 1970s, the Commodores were among the most successful American lineups.
The musician embarked on a solo career at the beginning of the following decade. According to critics, he sensed the mood of the music market well at the time and brought a catchy melancholy to the industry. With his melodic hits, he competed with, for example, Michael Jackson. He didn’t sing all of them himself, for example his Lady, performed by Kenny Rogers, already reached the top of the American charts in 1980.
A year later, Richie’s duet Endless Love with singer Diana Ross achieved the same success, followed by his debut solo album in 1982.
Lionel Richie is the recipient of an Oscar and four Grammy Awards. | Photo: Dennis Leupold
The second album Can’t Slow Down from 1983 also gave Richie the hit Hello, after which the current tour is named. The following year, he performed at the closing ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, which brought him more fans.
Richie’s absolute peak was in 1985 thanks to the famous song We Are The World, which he composed with Michael Jackson and which, performed by two dozen performers, started a campaign to help Africa affected by famine. The creation of the song, which has sold over 20 million copies, is looked back at this year’s documentary called Pop’s Starliest Night. It premiered at the Sundance festival, and later debuted at the top of the Netflix video library viewing chart.
To date, Lionel Richie has sold over 125 million records worldwide and won many awards, including an Oscar, a Golden Globe and four Grammys. Americans have seen him in the last decade, among other things, as a judge of the American Idol singing competition. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022. Last May, he performed as the main star at Windsor Castle during the coronation concert on the occasion of the coronation of King Charles III.
So far, Lionel Richie has performed twice in the Czech Republic, the first time in 2007 at the then Sazka Arena and again five years later at the same venue, which at the time was already called the O2 Arena. He lifted her out of her seats with the hits Hello, All Night Long or Say You, Say Me. “Almost everything that made him famous as the singer of the funk group Commodores in the seventies, masterful ballads from the eighties and several pop hits from the last twenty years was heard,” wrote critic Josef Vlček in Hospodářské noviny.
According to him, Richie is amazing at capturing what is hidden behind banalities and giving content to even the most ordinary words. “It’s no wonder that his strongest weapon is ballads. Although he performed several sharp compositions, the listeners especially enjoyed the slow songs,” added the reviewer.
Video: Single Hello by Lionel Richie
One of Richie’s biggest hits Hello comes from 1983. | Video: Motown Records