Are you looking forward to the the BBC's Proms In The Park? "I'm looking forward to it and I've heard so much about it. What I love about Britain is that it's a traditional place. Love it! Just love it. "It's going to be me with an orchestra of blazing thunder under the stars in Hyde Park. Come with your vocal chords prepared for singing." Have you had any experience of playing with a big orchestra before? "I would love to say I've had plenty of experience. One or two times I've done this in my life where you actually put in the full orcahestra.
 | | The Commodores - Lionel is top right. |
"And it is so out of ordinary but at the same time, when you do as many love songs as I do, to have an orchestra behind you is like 'give me a break, it is the way it's supposed to be written and played!'. "And I just think an evening under the stars with the full on orchestra playing behind you is just going to be magical." How does it feel for you though - as you must have sung these songs thousands of times before. "Yes you get that feeling of: 'I've done that song a million times', but there's 40,000 people in that audience. People love the idea of singing along with me. One thing I've found out about my audience is that they don't listen to me they sing along with me! They know these songs so well, how many times have they hummed this song or sung it in the shower. "It's really quite amazing that these songs have stuck around for so long and I just feed off the enthusiasm." "They grew up on these songs, this has been their karaoke spectacular for ever and now all of a sudden they have a chance to sing live and in living colour and they want to sing.
 | | Lionel Richie in younger days |
"We might out this into two concerts. One the quiet evening with Lionel Richie and of course the karaoke night with Lionel Richie and you can bring along your popcorn!" Your new album is called Coming Home, do you feel like you're going back to basics? "You've hit the nail on the head. What it represents to me and I give credit to LA Reid my record chairman - he said: 'where you not been in a long time?' and I said 'R&B', and he said 'well let's go there'. "I realised I started with The Commodores and R&B, then we went to Calypso, we did the waltz, we been to folk, we been to country, we been to everything. "The last time I was solidly at R&B was when I was doing Commodores stuff and of course the greatest thing that happened here is that R&B is so pop now that it's just wonderful to be able to go back and out the whole package together.
 | | Lionel Richie pouting in the 80s |
"I had a chance to write with some of the greatest writers of the R&B world: Germain Dupris, Dallas Austin, Chucky Booker, Sean Garrick, Stargate out of Philadelphia. We've even got a track by Wycliffe Jean.
"It's a wonderful collection of people interpreting where they think Lionel Richie ought to be right now." Did they say to you 'eh I'm sitting here with Lionel Richie, I can't believe it!'? "I can't tell you how many times, that's the joke of it. There's this one kid, we're in the studio, after I sing a note or a line I'm waiting for a 'yeah!' or 'can you do it again it's not quite right'. The kid said nothing. So I went through the next line. He said nothing. So I sang the whole verse. He didn't say yeah, he didn't say no. So I said 'excuse me', do you like it? He said 'do I like it? It's fantastic!'. So I said, 'well why don't you tell me?'. 'Well I figured you're Lionel Richie you kind of know that you're singing it right!'. (laughs). BBC Proms in the Park9 September 2006, Hyde Park, London Lionel Richie plus tenor Vittorio Grigolo added to line-up joining: Angela Gheorghiu, Alison Balsom, Terry Wogan and the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Carl Davis. | 
