MR Richie your just gooooooood... so get off the mans back and enjoy the music like I am.

sure, everything sounds good and fine, but if he were really going back to his roots, wouldn't Richie just write some new songs rather than just re-hashing the tried and true ones?
the jaded me would think this was just an aging musician trying to get a bit of the glory back with a nice cash injection.

country and metal-i'll put this out,to funk things up a bit,certain[rather dark] sectors, of these two very different musical idioms,probably have a political/ideologic convergence.

In that cover picture he looks like a man who hasn't sat on a porch in 35 years.

I never bought a Lionel Ritchie CD and am not a great fan of Country,
But I'm downloading this one. The proof us in the listening.

I used to consider him a guilty pleasure as a pop or funk artist but after rehearing his songs i realize he appealed to me on another music level - some version of country. They sound great and now i no longer have to hide my true feelings!

I always thought the background vocals on "Easy" were pretty cheesy. On the country version, that background melody line sounds like cheese wiz.

Country...*shudder*

Why?

Just sing it like it's the chorus of his hit "Easy"....

"That's why Tuskegeeeee"

Is this a smackdown? No one's smacking and no one is down - yet. Let's get down and dirty about this!

as someone who HATES (forgive me!) Country, I think could stand listening to this while hitchiking in the south (for 4-6 hours) WITHOUT vomitting.

And THAT is a huge compliment from a metal-head.

i think the original "stuck on you", works better for me. i'm an old fogey, shoot me..

The record company certainly has a large promotional budget for this project. Lionel Richie is everywhere - network morning news shows, the Academy of Country Music awards show this past weekend, an hour long prime time special coming up, etc. (and no - I am not a fan). How many copies does the disc need to sell / download to make back the advances already shelled out?

Lionel's heart is in the right place. Remember he is from Alabama and has a valid input from a background of having grown up in a place and time surrounded and saturated by country music in the atmosphere. It's great that we live in a time now where an African American musician besides Charlie Pride can contribute to the country scene as well.

What pop song sounds more like it belongs on the country stage than Richie's ALONE? I can hear a dozen or more different country singers handling it.

Lionel Ritchie dancing around on the CMA in cowboy boots? Did not think it fits with his "current" image.. What's next a cowbiy hat?

"stuck on you", was a very simple soothing tune from the 80's, that provided a nice little haven of quiet, for people, amid the much overproduced,[lionel included] 80's.

sometimes i just hate music

To the extent that terms like pop, country and R&B mean anything, Lionel Richie has always been a pop singer, and "Tuskegee" is a pop album. For that matter, Lady Antebellum is a pop group.