Product Description
Personnel includes: Lionel Ritchie (vocals, Fender Rhodes piano, keyboards); Robyn Smith (conductor); Fred Jerkins III, Rodney Jerkins (various
instruments); Paul Barry (acoustic guitar); Adam Phillips, Michael Landau (electric guitar); Paul Jackson Jr., Dean Parks, Jon Clark (guitar); L.M.O. Studio Orchestra (strings); "Snake" Davis (saxophne); John Thirkell (trumpet); Raymond Brown, Gary Bias, Michael Stewart, Kelly Wendall, Reginald Young (horns); Jerry Peters (piano); Walter Afanasieff (keyboards, synthesizer, programming); Lloyd Tolbert, Mark Taylor, Joe Wolfe (keyboards, programming); Daryl Simmons (keyboards); Michael Boddicker (synthesizer); Alex Al, Rickey Minor, Dorian Daniels, Ronnie Garrett (bass); Ricky Lawson (drums).
Producers: Lionel Richie, Joe Wolfe, Brian Rawling, Mark Taylor, Rodney Jerkins.
Engineers: Mark Taylor, Dirk Vanoucek, Dave Greene.
"Angel" was nominated for the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording.
He's updated both his trademark big hair and his sound, which now includes hip hop beats and samples, but Lionel Ritchie's first album of the 21st century still sounds as melodic, and as harmonically complex, as anything he's done before, and the lyrics are just as heartfelt. "Angel," the album's single, for example, sounds right at home (particularly rhythmically) with anything else on the radio in 2001, but if you really listen you'll hear a classic Ritchie ballad that would have worked equally well during his '80s heyday.
Elsewhere, there's a pronounced Latin influence on several of the songs such as "Cinderella," "Dance the Night Away," and "Don't You Ever Go Away." The album ends rousingly with the anthemic "Don't Stop the Music."
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