Photo1: Diana Ross
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Photo 2: Lionel Richie
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Acapella: Gail Nobles
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Last year I mentioned the National R&B Music Day which is observed on the first Saturday of March each year. It is a national day of recognition and celebration for R&B music declared by the US National Day Archives organization. To find out more, go to nationalarchives.com.
So who do you think of when you think of R&B music? I think of the famous duet between Lionel Richie and Diana Ross singing Endless Love.
Endless Love was written by Lionel Richie. In the ballad, the singers declare their endless love for one another. Billboard has named the original version as the greatest song duet of all time. There were other singers that covered the song, but I like the original the best.
Lionel Richie and Diana Ross recorded the song for Motown, and it was used as the theme for Franco Zeffirelli’s film adaptation of Scott Spencer's novel Endless Love.
While the film Endless Love was a modest box-office success, the song became the second-biggest selling single of the year in the United States and reached number one on the Hot 100, where it stayed for nine weeks from August 15 to October 10, 1981. It also topped the Billboard R&B chart and the Adult Contemporary chart, and reached number seven in the United Kingdom.
I'm Gail Nobles. Tune in next time for more.