Fact #119460
When:
Short story:
On his All The Hits All Night Long tour, Lionel Richie plays at The Mercedes Benz Arena, Shanghai, China, Asia.
Full article:
Bruce Eskowitz (manager, Lionel Richie) : China was an incredibly interesting place to play. Business-wise it’s the same basic premise as what we do in America, and they have some great promoters over there, but it was amazing in Shanghai to see that all of those people knew all of Lionel's songs and sang along with them in English.
One thing we noticed was that some of the press articles referred to Lionel as 'teacher', which we didn’t understand at first, until it was explained to us that when China was opening up to Western influences, a lot of people learned to speak English through listening to the lyrics of his songs. Hello and Say You, Say Me, were among the first English-language songs they had ever heard.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black for Audience magazine, February 2015)
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One thing we noticed was that some of the press articles referred to Lionel as 'teacher', which we didn’t understand at first, until it was explained to us that when China was opening up to Western influences, a lot of people learned to speak English through listening to the lyrics of his songs. Hello and Say You, Say Me, were among the first English-language songs they had ever heard.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black for Audience magazine, February 2015)