Lionel Richie showcased tonight at SXSW with a special guest. Kenny Rogers got up on stage and performed the classic ‘Lady’.
Richie wrote the Rogers classic ‘Lady’ for Kenny in 1980. It is listed by Billboard as the #47 biggest selling song of all time in America. As Kenny left the stage, Lionel burst into a few choruses of ‘Coward of the County’. Kenny, who was halfway off the stage, turned around and waved the naughty finger at Lionel.
Lionel was at SXSW to showcase his new country album ‘Tuskegee’ but did not perform one song off it. Instead he chose to give the audience his greatest hits. At one point, he even said, “from now on I’m only going to do Commodores songs”.
Richie started out with ‘Running In The Night’ and then we had ‘Easy’ incorporating ‘My Love’, ‘Ballerina Girl’, ‘Still’, ‘Stuck On You’, ‘Dancing On The Ceiling’ incorporating Van Halen’s ‘Jump’, ‘Sail On’, ‘Lady’ (with Kenny), ‘Brick House’ and then an encore of ‘Hello’ and ‘All Night Long’.
You forget how many hits Lionel has had and how memorable the songs are until you see them back to back at one of his gigs.
Lionel announced tonight he is about to head out on a world tour.
‘Tuskegee’ was released this month through Universal.
Stay tuned for our Bruce Sprinssteen performance review at SXSW tonight.
