Nashville, TN (Top40 Charts/ Webster & Associates) Lionel Richie will be joined by surprise guests when he takes the stage on Wednesday at Billboard's annual showcase at South By Southwest's
Music Festival at Austin's state-of-the-art music venue ACL Live.
Throughout the spring, Richie will perform with several of the country artists who have recorded duets with him of 13 of his hits for his new album, Tuskegee, which will be released March 26. Artists performing with him over the next few months encompass numerous musical genres, evidence of his vast influence over several generations of recording artists of all types.
One of the guests will be Kenny Rogers, who will perform "Lady" with him during the Billboard showcase at South By Southwest on Wednesday and a live HSN concert on Friday.
Richie will kick off the first "HSN Live" concert series in "HSN LIVE Presents
Lionel Richie sponsored by Cricket," which begins at 8 p.m. ET on Friday. He will perform some of the 13 hits on Tuskegee, his Mercury Nashville album that features duets with country stars including Shania Twain, Jennifer Nettles,
Blake Shelton, Tim McGraw, Jason Aldean, Kenny Chesney, and of course, Kenny Rogers.
It is the first time that Richie has performed at both South By Southwest and HSN, and it will be made even more special by Rogers' participation. The two music icons have been close friends for three decades.
"I get emotional because there's one person in this whole world that I owe the launch of the second half of my life, and that's Kenny Rogers," Richie says. "A lot of artists will say to a songwriter, 'Thank you very much.' One night Kenny said right in the middle of the American
Music Awards, 'I'd like to thank
Lionel Richie for writing this song for me.' That camera came over his shoulder and picked me up onstage and my second lifetime began. He was sincerely, probably singlehandedly the most important person to launch me into the next ozone of my life.
"He's my mentor in terms of how ironic that I came from a group and he came from a group. My lifetime experiences parallel a lot of his lifetime experiences in terms of a band and group and leaving and surviving. Every question I ever had of, 'How do I get out of this situation,' I would take to Kenny. He'd go, 'OK, sit down. Let me tell you what the next chapter of your life is going to be.'
"Because 'Lady' was so huge and it was just our baby together, I couldn't think of another song to do. He's probably one of the best friends I have in the world because he's a sweetheart. It's very powerful for me to have him on this record. He's really a dear friend and I'm glad I could share this with him. I can't wait to sing with him onstage and tell him thank you in person."
"Lady," which was written and produced by Richie, was released in 1980 and became one of the biggest hits of Rogers' career, charting on all four of Billboard's charts ---Hot Country Singles, Hot 100, Adult Contemporary and Hot Soul Singles - and hitting No. 1 on three of them. "Lady" is ranked No. 47 on Billboard's Hot 100 All-Time Top Songs. Richie produced Rogers' album, Share Your Love a year later.
The two also made history together in 1985, when Rogers sang on the charity song "We Are the World," a song co-written by Richie, and they also participated in 1986's "Hands Across America." In 2005, on the 25th anniversary of "Lady," they reunited for CMT Crossroads. This week marks the second time in seven years that they have performed together, following 2010's TV special, Kenny Rogers: The First 50 Years.
Rogers says he enjoyed recording "Lady" with Richie and looks forward to performing the legendary No. 1 song live with Richie.
"The first time I heard 'Three Times a Lady,' 'Still,' and all of those incredible Commodore songs, I knew there was a connection between R&B music and country music, so I tracked Lionel down and brought him to Vegas," Rogers says. "He played me a small part of 'Lady,' and I fell in love with that song and his writing at that point.
"I wanted to record 'Lady' because the last thing I wanted to do was sing a song Lionel had been doing for years and try to compete with him on it. This was a song people were familiar with me singing on more so than Lionel, so I thought I stood a fair chance.
"It was awesome! It ended up sounding great."
