Lionel Richie

Book excerpt: For over thirty years Lionel Richie has never looked back as a performer. From fronting his group the Commodores - the premier R&B pop unit of the seventies - he became the most popular singer/songwriter in the world by the eighties. A decade later he was the ultimate star entertainer with a 'nice guy' image. The Lionel Richie story is about a five-time Grammy winner who has sold more than 100 million albums worldwide. For nine consecutive years he had no 1 singles in America, a feat matched only by Irving Berlin. It is also the story of two broken marriages, personal insecurities, near-death experiences and an insight into the man behind a success story that broke the rules. Lionel Richie is the first book written about Lionel Richie and the Commodores and draws on Sharon Davis' unique access to the Motown archive, her numerous in depth interviews with Richie as well as her time as the Commodores' publicist.