I never imagined one of my first album reviews would be on Pop/R&B artist Lionel Richie.  He’s been nowhere near my radar since the 1980’s, when I actually regularly listened to ~ and cared about ~ Top 40 radio (you couldn’t tear my walkman headphones out of my ears on Sunday nights during Casey Kasem‘s Top 40 Countdown for anything in my youth!)   Save for the occasional reminder that Lionel is Nicole Richie’s (adoptive) father, I haven’t thought much of him, nor listened to anything of his, in ages.

However, of late, due to the recent release of his new album, Tuskegee, I’ve been hearing and reading quite a bit about the seemingly once again ubiquitous artist.  And I must say I’ve been impressed…by his humor, his groundedness, his sincerity and his willingness to do something different…

…something really different.  Lionel, in a move both bold and refreshing, has gone country…in perhaps the most clever way he could ~ with his very own existing catalogue of hit songs, every one of which he is joined on by one or another of today’s (and in a few cases, yesterday’s) hottest country artists.  He has essentially made an album of covers ~ country revisions of his very own songs…and believe it or not, it works!  Continue reading →