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10 nuggets from Lionel Richie’s memoir ‘Truly’
Cover of Lionel Richie’s memoir Truly, released on September 30, 2025 — a reflection on his six-decade journey from small-town Alabama to global music stardom.
Lionel Richie is arguably one of the most successful pop musicians of all time, with a career that spans six decades, sales of more than 125 million albums and songs that have been the soundtrack of the lives of different generations of people across the world.
His memoir Truly, named after one of his signature ballads, released on September 30, 2025, is filled with heartwarming and often hilarious anecdotes, of how a painfully shy boy from a small town in Alabama US, became a global mega star.
Richie shares the blueprint of his longevity at the top of the music business, writing timeless classics such as Easy, Sail On, Three Times a Lady, All Night Long and Hello and reminisces on unguarded moments with Michael Jackson, Kenny Rogers, Quincy Jones and others who have been part of his close circle. Enjoy these 10 nuggets from the pages of Truly by Lionel Richie.
Richie’s childhood nickname was coined by his father who made up a playful scat song that went from Skeebo and Skeeboo to Skeeter to Skeet (His friend and mentor Quincy Jones, whom he talked to daily at 3am called him Skeets).
Lionel Richie, one of the most celebrated pop musicians of all time.
Photo credit: Pool
Trumpet vs saxophone
He started playing the saxophone after he received the instrument as a gift from his uncle who was a jazz musician and arranger.
What he really wanted to play though, like many of his friends, was the trumpet, “That seemed cool and I was a huge Miles Davis fan, but my lips were too big to get the sound right, and it was frickin’ painful,” he writes.
Stage fright
This is how Riche remembers his first show as a saxophonist and vocalist with his college band The Mystics: “As curtains opened, I leaned into the mic, the girls screamed, and I quickly followed the curtains off the stage. The sensory overload made me hyperventilate – and you can’t blow into a horn if you can’t breathe.”
Seductive power
As a 21-year-old, Richie sang Wichita Lineman by country star Glen Campbell at an audition that earned the Commodores (a merger of the Mystics and another college band, The Jays) a contract as the opening act for Motown’s hottest group The Jackson 5 on their 1970 world tour.
As the Motown scout Suzanne de Passe would perceptively remark after watching that audition, singing ballads is where “the seductive power of Lionel Richie’s voices lives”.
Love ballads
To give him an edge over other members of the Commodores who were contributing up-tempo songs, Richie decided to go against the grain: “If everybody is bringing in a fast song or a funky song, I gotta bring in the slow song,” he writes. He was therefore guaranteed one song on each of the group’s albums and hence earned additional royalties.
Lionel Richie, one of the most celebrated pop musicians of all time.
Photo credit: Pool
Ultimately, ballads like Sweet Love and Just to Be Close to You gave him a distinction within the band. The spoken intro on the latter was, he notes, “for every man who wanted to reveal his heart but didn’t have the words to do so.”
Easy
Exasperated after being handed a binder of close to 365 pages detailing his schedule for a year, Richie’s reaction was to grab a pen and write: “Why in the world would anybody out chains on me?” The opening lyrics of the second verse of what would become the all-time classic Easy. He reveals how he got stuck writing the “musically complicated” song and how listening to the silence unlocked the lyrics “Easy like a Sunday morning”
Treasurer
In addition to being the lead singer of the Commodores, Richie was entrusted with managing their finances, because he had a reputation for being frugal with money. His bandmates called him Jack Benny after the legendary American comedian who portrayed a fictional character who was a miser.
Late comer
Richie and his pal Stevie Wonder share a notoriety for being tardy with time, though he says, the reward is that when they show up, “they can give you a classic record like never before”. Stevie, who is blind is also a practical joker, such as when, as recounted in the book, he cranked up a car, engaged the reverse gear, and to the horror of Richie who was in the passenger’s seat, began to back down a driveway.
‘Three Times a Lady’
The song was inspired by a toast Richie’s dad gave his mother: “She’s a great lady, she’s a great mother, and she’s a great friend” Those moving words left such an impression that he captured them in the song, Three Times a Lady. “The song was not for the Commodores, Richie discloses. “It needed to be sung by someone with more gravitas, someone iconic, I wrote it for Frank Sinatra.” In 1978, it became the first Billboard Hot 100 No 1 for the Commodores and has been covered by more than 40 different artistes.
Lionel Richie, one of the most celebrated pop musicians of all time.
Photo credit: Pool
Tina Turner
Richie reveals that when he toured with Tine Turner in 1984, she would whisper to him while they sang together on stage, prodding him to give more energy to the performance: “Lionel, c’mon, give it to me, sing it to me baby, you got more than that, Lionel, c’mon” he recollects her saying to his face.
Finally, a gem of wisdom from Lionel Richie: “Fame, money, and power do not buy you immortality. Being a legend doesn’t make you less mortal.”
