Stevie Wonder & Charlie Puth Pay Tribute – Hollywood Life

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When it got here time for the 2022 American Music Awards to have fun the legacy and affect of Lionel Richie, it took a number of superstars – together with one in all Lionel’s fellow icons. Charlie Puth and Stevie Marvel kicked off the tribute to Lionel, 73, this 12 months’s recipient of the Icon Award. Stevie, 72, and Charlie, 30, teamed up for a medley of Lionel’s hits, turning the Microsoft Theatre into the most important piano bar in Los Angeles. The 2 every took a flip enjoying a snippet of a Lionel Richie hit, exhibiting the person’s affect all through the many years. The tribute ended with “We Are The World,” and everybody within the theatre joined.

A few of the night time’s greatest stars — like Ari Lennox — got here out to sing, and Lionel couldn’t assist himself. He jumped on stage and joined in.

“I began out right here, on the AMAs, and my profession, to this present day, forty years later, I’m again on the AMAs,” stated Lionel when accepting the Icon Award, who thanked Dick Clark, earlier than thanking his children – Sofia Richie, Nicole Richie, and Miles Richie – and their moms, for serving to elevate them.

Smokey Robinson, the primary host of the AMAs again in 1972, stated he was “honored” to current the award to his “brother,” Lionel Richie. From there, audiences had been handled to a retrospective of Lionel’s profession, from his time with the Commodores, to his breakout as a solo artist.

The AMAs introduced in early November that Lionel would obtain the Icon Award on the 2022 ceremony and make historical past as nicely: along with his 2022 efficiency, he turns into the one artist to be featured on the AMAs stage each decade because the present’s creation in 1974 (per Billboard). The Icon Award is his 18th total AMA, along with his first two coming with the ban, the Commodores, and the remainder gained as a solo artist. In 1984, Richie was the primary to host the AMAs by himself. The next 12 months, he returned because the host and gained a then-record six awards that night time.

“I’m immensely grateful for a profession that has taken me to locations I by no means imagined that I’d go, from arenas worldwide to studio units to the AMA stage,” Lionel Richie stated in an announcement concerning the Icon Award. “I can recall one of many first instances I received to carry out on the AMAs. It was to sing ‘We Are the World’ among the many most iconic musicians of my era, so it’s surreal to be receiving this recognition 36 years later.”

“Lionel Richie has had a profound affect on numerous folks all over the world and on the music trade as an entire,” govt producer and showrunner Jesse Collins stated in an announcement. “From the hundreds of thousands of {dollars} raised as a consequence of ‘We Are the World’ to the worldwide affect his distinctive sound nonetheless has right now, Richie is the definition of a residing legend, and honoring him with the AMAs Icon Award is a no brainer.”

This efficiency will cap off a banner 12 months for Lionel. In 2022, Lionel was inducted into the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame as a part of the Class of 2022, which included Eminem, Dolly Parton, Carly Simon, Eurythmics, Duran Duran, and Pat Benatar.

Lionel Richie (Alexis C Glenn/UPI/Shutterstock) “I have to say additionally that there are folks that have really needed to tolerate fairly a bit,” he stated within the speech, admitting he most well-liked tour life over home life. “Typically while you fall in love with the music enterprise, you are likely to fall out of affection and folks don’t perceive what the hell you’re doing over. I missed 25 years of pep rallies, bonfires, and household reunions.”

From there, he thanked his three kids – together with Sofia Richie and Nicole Richie – earlier than including, “I need to thank them for really sitting via my magical thriller tour. And I need to let everybody know that I’m in all probability not coming house for fairly some time. I’m in love with this enterprise. I really like what I do. Thanks a lot for this wonderful second.” (h/t Vulture)