The documentary is based on hours of footage from the night they recorded the single, only a few minutes of which was used for the original music video. The Greatest Night In Pop (TGNIP) came out eighteen months ago, and while millions of people have viewed it, I’m constantly surprised to learn that many have not. Everyone should.
If I had to recommend a documentary or just ‘something to watch on TV’ for absolutely anyone - man or woman, old or young, liberal or conservative, highbrow or lowbrow - I’d recommend The Greatest Night In Pop. It may not be the deepest, most profound ninety minutes of TV, but it is irresistibly enjoyable. And actually, like the best pop, it is deep; it just doesn’t pretend to be.
To us Brits, We Are The World was a mere footnote to Do They Know It’s Christmas? That record was instigated by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure and recorded by a supergroup of British and Irish musicians under the name Band Aid (an underrated pun). The proceeds went to famine victims in Ethiopia. We Are The World was made for the same cause.
I knew that, but what I learnt from TGNIP is that there was an element of racial pride in the American response, which arose spontaneously from a conversation between Harry Belafonte and Lionel Richie’s manager. Belafonte said, “We have white folks saving Black folks—we don’t have Black folks saving Black folks”. Lionel agreed, and the wheels started to turn.
Ah, Lionel. The man who makes everything happen. It is perhaps not coincidental that he should emerge as the star of this documentary, given that he co-produced it. The same might be said of Paul McCartney, who emerged as the hero of Get Back. But in neither case do I sense corruption of historical truth. Richie is extraordinary, both as a talking head and in his 1985 incarnation. As chief interviewee - host might be a better word - he sparkles: mischievous, funny, a supreme storyteller. As the prime mover behind the recording of We Are The World, he is simply awesome.
After Belafonte’s prompt, Lionel calls Quincy Jones - the maestro, the master, the producer of the best-selling album of all time. Jones immediately says yes, and they call Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder. Both agree, Stevie only belatedly because nobody can get hold of him (a theme of the doc is that Stevie Wonder is both delightful and utterly ungovernable). With these stars on board, they know that pretty much everyone else will want to be involved, and so it proves. They decide to recruit white stars as well as black, and get Springsteen and Joel and Kenny Rogers and Willie Nelson and others.
The first thing the principals need to do is come up with a song. Lionel goes to Michael’s house, and the pair spend several days hacking away at the piano (Stevie was invited but is AWOL). With a couple of days to go, they crack it (that is, Quincy likes it). The song is, well, fine: not a work of genius but a pleasant, gospel-inflected anthem, easy enough to sing without much preparation, catchy enough to be a hit. It does the job.
When he took up this baton, Richie was on a career high. He’d left The Commodores and broken out as a solo star. He was about to host the American Music Awards in Los Angeles, the biggest primetime music show, for which he himself was nominated for eight awards (he won six). It soon becomes apparent to all concerned that the best and perhaps only way to get all the talent in the same place to record a single would be to do it on the night of the awards, when so many of them are in town anyway. That would mean doing an all-night session, and for Lionel, it would mean first hosting a live awards show watched by millions - demanding, stressful, exhausting - then helping to run this second, private show right afterwards. No problem!
So it is that after the AMAs we see limousines dropping stars off at an LA recording studio. From a narrative point of view, a delicious premise emerges: a bunch of very famous, egotistical, impatient, nervous pop stars, most of whom don’t know each other (“It was like the first day of kindergarten”, recalls Richie) are brought together in a room to make a record of a song they barely know (they’ve heard a demo). It absolutely has to be a huge hit. They have about eight hours; there’s no coming back tomorrow.
It could have gone badly wrong. That it didn’t is testament to all involved but to Richie and Jones in particular. The two of them corral this unwieldy gaggle into making a sleek and successful product.1 The first time I watched TGNIP I enjoyed it unreflectively. When I watched it for a second time, I began to see it as a study in leadership, collaboration and teamwork.
I’ve written before about how diversity needs to be interpreted beyond demographic attributes like race and gender to temperament and personality. The British management researcher Meredith Belbin constructed a famous inventory of behavioural types which together make up a successful team: the Resource Investigator, the Coordinator, the Shaper, the Catalyst, and so on.
TGNIP prompted me to come up with an inventory of my own: the Decider, the Connector, the Conscience, the Old Buck, the Disrupter, the Weirdo, and the Lover.
THE DECIDER
Quincy Jones taped up a handwritten sign at the entrance to the studio: LEAVE YOUR EGO AT THE DOOR. He was possibly the only person in America who would have dared to write such a sign for such a crowd and certainly the only one who would have been listened to.
To lead a team of 40 superstars was a tough task but it certainly helped to be Quincy Jones. Aged 51, he been an arranger for Duke Ellington and Frank Sinatra; produced Donna Summer and Aretha Franklin; won multiple Grammys; turned Michael Jackson into the biggest artist in the world.
In TGNIP he is somewhat marginal to the action just because he is in the control room, while the camera roves the studio floor. We hear his voice over the intercom and see him when he comes onto the floor to coach someone through a difficult vocal part. (He wasn’t interviewed for the doc but we hear him speaking about the night from an earlier interview).
There’s no question he is in charge, though. His interventions are economical and precise; he doesn’t waste words. He is stern when he needs be, jocular in a restrained way; cool. Everyone in the room looks up to him, literally and metaphorically. He is friendly but not your best friend. He is here to make sure the job gets done, and done well. He is The Decider.
THE CONNECTOR
By contrast, Lionel Richie is very much your best friend. He is everywhere, talking to everyone: greeting, thanking, hugging; answering a thousand queries; soothing egos; telling stories and making jokes; giving pep talks; smoothing over potential conflicts; solving musical problems; hyping and cheerleading; raising the energy level when it flags; consoling the weary. Somebody else says of him, “He’s making the water flow.” That’s it.
Richie has a special knack for wrangling very talented, slightly nuts individuals. Cyndi Lauper, who was a massive star at that time, bigger than Madonna, decided on the evening of the recording that she wasn’t going to do it after all. The reason she gave is that her boyfriend didn’t like the demo of the song that Richie and Jackson had made. He’d told her it would never be a hit.
Lionel has to take a minute backstage at the awards ceremony which he is presenting to find Lauper, put any hurt feelings he might have aside, and cajole her into returning to the team. Later on, he’s the one negotiating with Prince over his possible participation over the phone. He also has to hide wine bottles from Al Jarreau so that he doesn’t get too drunk before recording his solo part. Details.
by Ian Leslie, The Ruffian | Read more:
Image: Netflix
[ed. Highly recommended.]
