LIONEL RICHIE

I just like people. I'll hold a conversation at a gas station. It's not about the fame and the fortune, I just like people.

I'm a songwriter, and people will tell you the greatest stories about their lives, whether you want to hear it or not.

By growing up in Alabama, I had a melting pot of the whole pie: R&B, gospel, country.

I travel around the world, experiencing every language, every religion... some places where there's just no reason to smile, because their lives are so difficult.

Country music has always been about as close to R&B as you can possibly get. We're storytellers.

When I came up with the idea for 'Tuskegee,' I didn't want to be confined by boundaries of age, genre or demographics. I am thrilled with how well this album has been received by people from all walks of life. It is truly living up to the vision we had when we created it.

All artists are egotistical maniacs with inferiority complexes.

I am a country boy and proud of it.

Taking time to sit back and watch and think about what you've seen is important. Traveling did a great deal to me. I found that when I travel and just sit in the corner and watch, a million ideas come to me.

So much of my career has been about saying things the way people say them, using melodies not that I can sing but that the people can sing.

I find the greatest songs in the world come out of pain, and I don't like it! Here's what it does: It strips away all of your facade. It makes you so honest. It's cleansing.

I always like to challenge myself. I never want to be put into a box.

Believe me, I love commerce as much as the rest of the readers of 'Businessweek.' But in art, you have to be true to yourself and your musical vision. People have known me well for a long time, so if I was chasing a trend and doing something that wasn't authentic to who I am, they would know it in just a few seconds.

Greatness comes from fear. Fear can either shut us down and we go home, or we fight through it.

Your kids can say some cruel things to you at times. For example, Nicole, Miles and Sofie are standing there in the room and I'm dressed to kill in my own mind. They'll say to me, 'Dad, you're not going out there looking like that are you?' If that doesn't kill a star, I don't know what does!

It was very interesting in my world, because I grew up as a fan and I did not know that there was a thing called R&B, pop, country, classical - I just knew that I loved music.

Growing up with country, R&B, gospel, and classical music from my grandmother and pop, Tuskegee was the perfect melting pot for my influences as a writer.

I knew I was going to do a country album one day. But I was just trying to figure out for the life of me, what we were going to do to make it different, unique.

People, as critical as it looks, we're OK. We are in control, whether we feel it or not.

I want to let everybody know that I'm from there, and country is Tuskegee. Or should I say rather, my country is Tuskegee. I was born and raised there, it's not just someplace I passed through one day.

I think the whole world is dying to hear someone say, 'I love you.' I think that if I can leave the legacy of love and passion in the world, then I think I've done my job in a world that's getting colder and colder by the day.

Country is bringing in a little rock element... a little '80s element. Melody is king now. But its just in the music, its not so much in the songwriting, which is still very basic to the storytelling aspect of it.

I find myself going out on the road to get my confidence back, because I lose it at home.

The best compliment that has ever been given to me was, I was at the airport one day and a guy came in and said, 'Lionel, my wife loves you, the kids love you, my mother-in-law loves you, the family loves you.'

When I was growing up, music was music and there were no genres. We didn't look at it as country music. Popular music in Tuskegee was country music. So I didn't know it in categories. It was the radio.