adminRichie sold 20 000 copies of his new country duets CD, Tuskegee, in just one hour during a live concert event on the Home Shopping Network on Friday.
The CD is new, but the tunes are not. Rather, Tuskegee, named for Richie’s Alabama hometown, is a greatest hits collection with a twist: Richie doing countrified covers of his own hit songs, paired with country stars.
Richie, who’ll also be a judge on ABC’s upcoming singing competition series Duets, told Rolling Stone he’s been drawn to country music for some time.
“Conway Twitty wanted me to come years ago and ‘be country’,” Richie said, “but I was too busy being a Commodore. Then Kenny Rogers wanted me to go country, but
I was too busy being the ‘pop’ Lionel Richie.
“Then all of a sudden we went into an area where it was, ‘Can Lionel Richie rap?’ No! Trust me. I can do it, but you don’t want to hear me. Flavor Flav said, ‘Don’t try it!
If you want somebody to rap, you call me. I’ll rap. You just sing!”
Richie will also perform a CBS concert with several of his new country cohorts in April.
ACM Presents: Lionel Richie and Friends — In Concert will be taped in Las Vegas on April 2 and broadcast on CBS on April 13, with performances by McGraw, the Band Perry, Rogers, Rascal Flatts, Chesney, Lady Antebellum, Martina McBride and Sugarland’s Jennifer Nettles.
Tuskegee will be released by Universal Music Nashville on March 26. — Dailyguideghana.
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