While attending a recent screening of a new documentary about the making of “We Are the World,” Lionel Richie found himself – even now, four decades after the release of the stellar charity single – in the grip of a growing sense of anxiety.
“You have to understand: It was an impossible thing to do,” the veteran pop-soul singer says of the one-night recording session that brought together 46 famous artists at the historic A&M Studios on La Brea Avenue on January 28, 1985. The mission, coinciding with the influx of talent to Los Angeles for the televised American Music Awards that night, was to record the song that Richie and Michael Jackson had written together to raise money for famine relief in Africa; The challenge was to do it in front of the assembled celebrities, including Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Cyndi Lauper, Billy Joel, Tina Turner, Huey Lewis, Kenny Rogers and Bob Dylan, all under the direction of producer Quincy Jones. – dispersed the next morning.
“People were booked to go home,” says Richie, who remembers seeing a clock on the studio wall around 2 a.m. and realizing how much work was left to do, “and we didn't have another day to do it,” says. . “So I sat there halfway through the movie and thought, 'Shit, we're in trouble.' I’m sweating, and it was 40 years ago,” he says, laughing. “I had to remind myself: 'The song is out, Lionel. It was a success. We did it.'”
In fact, “We Are the World” was an instant hit: it sold 800,000 copies in just three days and topped Billboard's Hot 100 for four consecutive weeks. Credited to USA for Africa, the song was certified quadruple platinum and won Grammy Awards for Record and Song of the Year; It is also said to have generated tens of millions of dollars in much-needed humanitarian aid.
Now, this iconic '80s artifact is the subject of “Pop's Biggest Night,” an entertaining and surprisingly moving documentary from filmmaker Bao Nguyen that premiered this month at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, before arriving on Netflix on Monday.
Drawing on archival footage and new interviews with Richie, Springsteen, Lauper, Warwick and others, the film offers an immersive, richly detailed account of the song's high-pressure creation, not just that night at A&M but throughout the weeks of advance planning required to figure out who to recruit, where and when to do it, and how to keep it a secret.
Nguyen, whose previous films include 2020's “Be Water” (about the life and work of Bruce Lee) and “Live From New York!” 2015. (about the early years of “Saturday Night Live”), he says that “there is almost a heist element” to the story as the people involved carefully planned the job.
However, “The Greatest Night in Pop” also makes a strong case for the artistic value of “We Are the World,” which after countless parodies and emulations can be difficult to listen to with fresh ears today. Here, however, there is an opportunity to hear as some of the greatest vocalists in history take turns trying to outdo each other in just a line or two: Willie Nelson stretching the word “God” to cosmic country extremes, Dionne Warwick getting slightly ahead of the beat, Ray Charles finding notes that You didn't even know they existed.
“I'm going to make it clear, okay? There is no Auto-Tune anywhere in the performance of that song,” says Richie, 74. “Spot. In other words, Bruce is killing Bruce. Ray… that's just Ray. That night you were left naked and there was nothing to save you.”
When asked if he's ever encountered a young singer auditioning for “We Are the World” in his role as a judge on television's “American Idol,” Richie laughs. “You know what, no one has gone down that path,” he says. “Thank God.”
As the documentary shows, “We Are the World” was conceived as a kind of American counterpart to “Do They Know It's Christmas?”, the British charity single released in late 1984 by an all-star supergroup that included George Michael, Phil Collins, Sting and Boy George, among many others.
Huey Lewis, from left, Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson recording “We Are the World.”
(Netflix)
“Harry Belafonte called me and said, 'What are we going to do to save black people?'” Richie remembers of the legendary artist and activist who died last year at age 96. “That was my wake-up call: 'Okay, he's talking to me right between the eyes.'” Richie, then riding high as a solo artist after his years fronting the Commodores, approached Jones, who approached Jackson, with whom the producer had made the box-office hit “Off the Wall.” ” and “Thriller” albums.
Unlike “Do They Know It's Christmas?”, the two songwriters did not intend to create a song tied to a specific time of year. “Michael and I decided early on that this should be an anthem,” Richie says. “And an anthem means we're looking for a forever song.”
“We Are the World,” which alternates between verses performed by several soloists and a chorus sung by the entire group, is also steeped in African-American tradition: the sensual rhythm of R&B and the communal thrust of gospel music. “When that chorus comes, it's undeniable,” Richie says. “You can't help but go to church because that's who we are: we're church people.”
Nelson George, a longtime music journalist and filmmaker, hears echoes of Motown in “We Are the World,” which Wonder helped shape as its arranger. “Michael, Lionel and Stevie, all three of them graduated from that school,” says George, whose 2023 documentary “Thriller 40” examines the making of Jackson's masterpiece. “And the Motown school was about the black roots that can cross the boundaries of the prejudices of the record business.”
Producer Julia Nottingham, from left, Lionel Richie and director Bao Nguyen of “The Greatest Night In Pop” at the LA Times Studio at this month's Sundance Film Festival. (Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)
(Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)
With the song in place, “The Greatest Night in Pop” follows the efforts of Richie's manager, Ken Kragen, to recruit as many big names as he could for the session, work that continued until the appointed time, according to Lewis, who remembers having sang the song for the first time that night with everyone gathered around a piano and Wonder on the keys.
“You could see it on Stevie's face when he heard all those voices, because he didn't know who was there,” Lewis tells The Times. “After that first rehearsal, I remember she just said, 'Wow, so many stars.'”
As a solo artist, Lewis ended up singing a line originally intended for Prince, who had been invited to perform but didn't show up, one of the big question marks in pop music lore given Prince's notorious rivalry with Jackson. Richie is philosophical about the Purple's absence.
“Artists like to be in control of our environment, and when you went into 'We Are the World,' you weren't in control,” he says. “For Prince, it was too out of control for him to deal with.”
Lewis, whose golf classic “Sports” had topped the Billboard chart in mid-1984, admits that he was “very nervous” during the recording session: “I was a rookie, man, and I was supposed to sing in front of Stevie? Wonder, Al Jarreau and Lionel Richie? Forget it.”
However, even a seasoned professional like Dylan felt uncomfortable in such a heady atmosphere. One of the pleasures of the documentary is its numerous shots of the folk-rock giant looking deeply uncomfortable amidst so many pop stars of the day.
“I think he was overwhelmed because he was surrounded by all these powerful singers,” Richie says. “So when it came time to do his part, he tried to sing it instead of Bob just doing it as Bob. It took him a minute to realize, 'Oh, you want me to sound like myself?'”
Some of the film's archival footage will be familiar to viewers with long memories from an earlier documentary that HBO released in 1985 (with a very poofy-haired Jane Fonda as host). But Julia Nottingham, who produced “The Greatest Night in Pop,” says the new film benefits from hours of behind-the-scenes audio recorded by journalist David Breskin, who was on site to report a story for Life magazine.
“He had his dictaphone on from the moment Lionel and Michael started writing the song and Ken started doing the logistics until 8 a.m. when they left the studio,” says Nottingham. “That's something the world has never heard before.”
The film also benefits, of course, from Richie, one of music's most engaging conversationalists. (He tells a great story about how Jarreau got drunk before the musicians did anything to celebrate.)
Michael Jackson, left, and Bob Dylan in “Pop's Biggest Night.”
(Netflix)
Still, revisiting his memories of “We Are the World” was a bittersweet experience for Richie, the singer says, given the number of participants who have died in recent years, including Jackson, Jarreau, Belafonte, Turner, Rogers. , James Ingram and several Pointer sisters. Did he make you wonder if a song like that could be recorded today? That's how it was and he has doubts about it.
“I don't know if the song could survive today's egos,” Richie says. “The cameras are working and all errors are being recorded. How many authorization forms do you think could be approved?
It also challenges modern audiences: their propensity for the knee-jerk suspicion we saw early in the COVID-19 pandemic when a group of pampered celebrities were completely criticized online for recording a cover of John Lennon's “Imagine.”
“We got a fair amount of feedback back then,” he says. “Why are they asking us for money? You have all these rich artists: give a million dollars each and leave us alone. But we've gotten to the point where you can't honestly say you want to help this group without receiving some kind of negativity. Is it really worth the trouble?
“People tell me, 'Lionel, we need another one of those songs,'” he says with a tired chuckle. “And I just say, 'Play 'We Are the World' again.”
