{"id":9,"date":"2024-01-13T16:57:20","date_gmt":"2024-01-13T16:57:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/legendmagz.com\/?p=9"},"modified":"2024-01-13T16:57:45","modified_gmt":"2024-01-13T16:57:45","slug":"lionel-richie-bruce-springsteen-and-more-stars-look-back-on-recording-we-are-the-world-in-new-documentary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/legendmagz.com\/?p=9","title":{"rendered":"Lionel Richie, Bruce Springsteen and More Stars Look Back on Recording ‘We Are the World’ in New Documentary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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“We only had one night to get this right,” says Richie in Netflix’s upcoming film, ‘The Greatest Night in Pop,’ about creating the 1985 hit<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Getting dozens of music’s biggest acts in one room to record the legendary 1985 charity single “We Are the World”<\/a> was no easy feat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Tuesday, Netflix unveiled the trailer for The Greatest Night in Pop<\/em><\/a>, a new documentary chronicling the complicated writing and recording process behind crafting “We Are the World” through the eyes of several musicians who lived it: Lionel Richie<\/a>, Bruce Springsteen<\/a>, Cyndi Lauper<\/a>and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Bao Nguyen-directed film utilizes both archival footage and new interviews to tell the story of how Harry Belafonte enlisted Richie, 74, and Michael Jackson<\/a> to write the benefit anthem to raise funds for African famine relief.
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Writing the song was one accomplishment, but then came the task of getting every single artist in the same studio for the now-iconic “We Are the World” recording session on Jan. 25, 1985.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The greatest artists of a generation came together to save some lives, but we only had one night to get this right,” says Richie in the film’s trailer, throughout which he recalls experiencing a “full-on fight” and “so many disasters.” Also appearing in The Greatest Night in Pop <\/em>are Smokey Robinson<\/a>, Kenny Loggins, Dionne Warwick<\/a> and Huey Lewis, all of whom featured on the song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The documentary will make its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 19 before it becomes available to stream on Netflix starting Jan. 29. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We Are the World,” produced by Quincy Jones<\/a>and Michael Omartian, became a massive hit upon its March 1985 release, reaching No. 1 on charts in several countries and becoming one of the best-selling singles of all time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The song went on to win four Grammy Awards at the 1986 ceremony: record of the year, song of the year, best pop performance by a duo or group with vocal and best music video, short form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Richie and Jackson’s composition also proved beneficial for the cause, making a whopping $63 million in sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During a 2016 interview at a Grammy Week event titled Arts & Ideas: Conversations @The Wallis<\/a>, <\/em>the Commodores musician recalled some of the chaos that went into the creation of “We Are the World.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“We only had one night to get this right,” says Richie in Netflix’s upcoming film, ‘The Greatest Night in Pop,’ about creating the 1985 hit…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/legendmagz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/legendmagz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/legendmagz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legendmagz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legendmagz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/legendmagz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13,"href":"https:\/\/legendmagz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions\/13"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legendmagz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/legendmagz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legendmagz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legendmagz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}