How does Lionel Richie look so young?

If Lionel Richie could bottle whatever it is that keeps him looking young, he would make a fortune.

The veteran American singer is now 56 years old but, as he showed during his recent visit to Dubai, he could easily pass for a man two decades younger.

Sadly for the rest of us, Richie insists he has no special formula for eternal youth the rest of us can borrow.

"I had a grandmother on my mum's side who lived to 104 and one on my father's side who lived to be 98."

"I would love to say it's yoga or yoghurt, but it's genetics. I thank my grandmothers every day."

"Also, it helps that I love what I do: travelling round and acting crazy and making people smile," he says.

Initial success

Richie first made his name with The Commodores in the 1970s and the following decade scored hit after hit as a solo artist.

In the 1980s, radio stations could hardly stop playing songs such as All Night Long, Easy, Dancing On The Ceiling and the tear-jerking Hello.

"Hello is probably the closest song to me because when I was young I was not the sports guy who all the girls loved, I was not the footballer, I was the loner."

"When I asked: 'Is it me you're looking for?' the ladies would say: 'Absolutely not.' I decided to write this song because I was not the guy everybody noticed," he says.

After striking such a chord with the public, at the height of his success, Richie more or less disappeared.

For a decade, apart from a greatest hits package, there were no more albums, no massive world tours, and fewer television appearances. Why?

"It's called stewing. I decided I had to live some more life before I could write some more. I took the '90s off."

"From 1990 when my father died to about 1998, I was in a cocoon. I was just travelling the world and living life for the moment, putting the knowledge back in," he says.

Very busy

After his extended lay-off, Los Angeles-based Richie has kept very busy in recent years, regularly releasing new albums and singles that have done reasonably well.

His 2004 single Just For You topped the charts in some markets and in the new year he plans to release another album and begin a two-and-a-half-year world tour.

But for all this activity, it will always be Richie's early songs that people love the most, as the man himself is happy to acknowledge.

During his recent concert at The Aviation Club Tennis Stadium in Dubai every single track was an old-timer.

Family story

"My music has been played in the home for so long that it's part of the family story. I am so blessed to be part of it. Sometimes people come up to me and whisper. The music touches them so deeply it's almost a religious experience, but I'm not a minister."

"I'm here to make people aware of the lives they lead. If you do it right, you do something that people find very hard to say. If you write the truth, it's magical," he says.

Richie himself - who hit the headlines in 2004 when his wife filed for divorce and asked for $300,000 (Dh1,101,810) a month in maintenance - has turned to his music for comfort at times.

"About three years ago, I was going through some really serious troubles and a friend said he had some tapes that would help me through."

"He brought me my greatest hits package and said: 'It's your time to experience it.' I started listening to the words of the songs and realised that it's kind of painful."

"It surprised me that I was crying to my own songs, but we are all human, and we go through the same troubles," he says.

The songs

Lionel Richie's career in music began in 1968 when he became lead singer and saxophonist with the Mowtown group The Commodores.

After the group had hits such as Easy, Three Times A Lady and Still, Richie went solo and continued the success with releases including Endless Love (with Diana Ross), Hello and Say You, Say Me.

Other old favourites include Penny Lover, Stuck On You, Ballerina Girl and the upbeat Dancing On The Ceiling.

During the 1990s he had hits with Do It To Me, My Destiny and Don't Wanna Lose You, and last year he entered the charts again with the single and album Just For You.