As Lionel Ritchie prepares to return to Wales as part of his latest UK tour, he talks to Gavin Allen about his career renaissance, his love life and the death of black music
FOR a man synonymous with romantic ballads, Lionel Ritchie hasn’t been particularly lucky in love.
Ritchie started his career writing up-tempo club tunes with The Commodores, but found his niche as a solo artist with the likes of Hello and Endless Love; he is the smoothest of the smoothies.
Ritchie has lost count of the number of times strangers have told him they do the most intimate of things while his music is playing, which is a little too much information for a man who will be 60 in June.
“It’s too much information when it’s a 250lb man saying ‘I have made love to you many times Lionel’,” he chuckles.
“But on the other hand it also makes me nervous when ladies say ‘I’ve had four babies by you’. As long as their last names are not Ritchie I can handle that, but I brought a lot of babies into the world.”
