Stuck On You - Lionel Richie - 1984 - (Album - Can't Slow Down)
It's Valentines Day and this is perfect. This has a story and had pretty good success. This was the fourth song off this album and the record jacket they sent us with this song had Richie wearing a big cowboy hat and looking very country. At the time, Richie was among the biggest pop stars on earth and wasn't known to be country at all. But this had nice country guitar licks and a very sweet message that was totally country friendly. The record company was working us to play it and the station where I was doing mornings, WRMZ in Columbus was very contemporary country and we jumped on board. Pop country was still in vogue and some stations were playing it, and others were not. In the end, it's just a nice song that makes you feel good. Was it country? Well, it was as country as a lot of other songs were playing then, and I'm glad we did. I lobbied for it. We also played this at my next job, doing morning's in Richmond, Virginia as the same program director, Rob Ryan was my boss there as well as Columbus. This song peaked at #24 on the country charts and went #1 A/C. But the one thing this song did very well, was set up Richie to get a big top 10 country hit a year or two later. (I'll share that song later this month) And also a very successful Country album many years later as I will profile Richie NEXT WEEK here.
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