Motown 6158
Producers: Lionel Richie and James Anthony Carmichael
Track listing: Dancing on the Ceiling / Sela / Ballerina Girl / Don’t Stop / Deep River Woman / Love Will Conquer All / Tonight Will Be Alright / Say You, Say Me
September 27, 1986
2 weeks
One day when Lionel Richie was working on his third solo album at Ocean Way Recording in Los Angeles, an acquaintance stopped in to congratulate the singer on the success of his latest single. “This guy said, ‘I just came back from Chicago and your record is doing great in Chicago. It’s breaking out over the Midwest,'” Richie recalls. The news was a shock to Richie, because he didn’t have a new single out. When the acquaintance told Richie that the new single was called “Say You, Say Me,” the singer was floored. “I said, ‘It can’t be ‘Say You, Say Me,’ because I haven’t mixed it yet.’ ”
As shocking as it seemed, an early version of “Say You, Say Me” had found its way into the hands of some program directors and onto the airwaves before Richie could finish the track. The song was slated to be included in the film White Nights, so the production company had asked Richie for a demo version of the song. Unbeknownst to Richie, a marketing executive for the film studio included a copy of the demo version of the song in a promotional package designed to drum up interest in the film, which was about a famed ballet dancer who defects from Russia to live in America.
“Four or five months later, I still hadn’t finished the album,” Richie says. Although “Say You, Say Me” appeared in the film, it wasn’t included on the White Nights soundtrack because of contractual reasons. Motown, meanwhile, rush-released the song as a single. “I had to finish the song and let it go, because we couldn’t have the demo out there on the radio,” Richie says. On December 21, 1985, it topped the Hot 100; soon after, it received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song. The publicity further delayed the release of the album, as frequent interview requests interrupted Richie’s scheduled studio time.
On March 24, 1986, Richie picked up an Oscar for “Say You, Say Me” and performed the song on the awards show telecast. Prior to the telecast, director Stanley Donen visited Richie to brief him on his performance. Coincidentally, Donen had worked with Fred Astaire in the film Dancing on the Ceiling and Richie just happened to be working on a song of the same name at the time. Donen volunteered his services for the gravity-defying video clip of the song.
For the song “Deep River Woman,” Richie turned to the popular country act Alabama. He flew into Nashville to work with the group. “They met me at the airport and we had a quick dinner and then I said, ‘What time do you guys want to record tomorrow?'” When the members of Alabama answered “Eight,” Richie thought they meant 8 p.m., but they had morning in mind. “They gave me a wake up call at 6 a.m. and I didn’t know where I was,” Richie recalls. “At 8:30 they were ready to sing. My body was in the studio, but my mind didn’t show up until about 2 p.m. But by that time, we had already recorded the song. I had no idea what we did.”
Alabama wasn’t the only special guest on the album. Eric Clapton is featured on the song “Tonight Will Be Alright.” To record Clapton’s guitar solo, Richie had to fly up to Seattle, where he attended a Clapton concert and was invited to join the guitarist for an encore of “Knock on Wood” and “The Midnight Hour.” After the show, Clapton laid down his guitar solo in one take. “It was magical,” recalls Richie.
When Dancing on the Ceiling was finally released in August, it didn’t disappoint. On September 13, the title track reached number two on the Hot 100, but was unable to unseat Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away.” Two weeks later, Dancing on the Ceiling hit Number One, becoming Richie’s second consecutive album chart-topper.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of September 27, 1986
1. Dancing on the Ceiling, Lionel Richie
2. Top Gun, Soundtrack
3. Raising Hell, Run-D.M.C.
4. True Blue, Madonna
5. Back in the Highlife, Steve Winwood