Richard Marx and Lionel Richie.Photo:Clive Brunskill/Getty Images for Laver Cup; Steve Jennings/Getty
Clive Brunskill/Getty Images for Laver Cup; Steve Jennings/Getty
Those smooth backing vocals onLionel Richie’s “All Night Long”? That’sRichard Marx!
During a Thursday appearance onThe Kelly Clarkson Show, the “Right Here Waiting” singer opened up about Richie’s role in his career.
“My first job in the record business was singing backup vocals for [Richie] when I was 18,” Marx, 60, said.
Clarkson responded, “What?! I didn’t know this.”
“This is a true story,” he said. “So next time you hear, ‘All night long, all night’ — that’s me.”
Clarkson asked the singer if he always wanted to be a backup singer to collaborate with major artists — or if the goal was to go solo.
In October 2022, Marx opened up about the call he received from Richie that changed his life on theTamron Hall Show.
“It was my senior year of high school and he said you should come to L.A. and when you come out here look me up. He gave me his number,” he recalled. “A year later I graduated and I blew off college. Went out to L.A. and he invited me out to the studio. He was making his first solo record and I sang on a song called ‘You Are.'”
Richard Marx.Noam Galai/Getty
Noam Galai/Getty
“Usually when you go with another artist, most of the time, they get together and they rehearse and it’s what it is. But we’ve been friends for so long that we have a banter and a relationship,“Springfield, 74, told Clarkson.
“We thought, if you’re doing a band thing with a big loud band, most of the time when someone’s talking onstage it’s [muffling noises],” the “Jessie’s Girl” singer added of their acoustic shows. “At an acoustic show you can actually talk to people.”
“We work very blue. It’s a lot of swearing. A lot of inappropriate banter in between songs,” Marx added.
source: people.com
