Head to a Lionel Richie concert and you're guaranteed three things - great music, a spectacular night with a genuine guy and hundreds of men and women in tears in the audience.
It was once said the only thing mandatory at a Richie show should be Kleenex, and after meeting the man himself it's not hard to understand why.
If you thought the songs were emotional you should meet the man in person - sensitive doesn't start to cover it. But it does explain why one or more of his songs have touched, changed and affected millions of people's live around the world.
For me it's Three Times a Lady - I was born in September 1978 when the hit song reached number one in the UK charts and the song has stuck with me through my 29 years.
With e-mails and text messages signed ‘I love you my three-times-a-lady' from mum, an emotional dance at her wedding and plans for an even more emotional one at mine, the song will always be ‘my song' to me - just as I'm sure it's ‘my song' to many others.
So how does he do it? Why is it Lionel's songs seem to have had and continue to have such a profound effect on so many?
As casual as you like in a steel-grey linen Kaftan-style shirt, Lionel put me instantly at ease in the almost uncomfortable emptiness of Abu Dhabi's Emirates Palace Hotel.
A set of perfect teeth the first thing you see as a warm smile breaks his face, he sat and started to explain.
A joke on stage
He said: "I don't really know the answer but I can only guess that it's because everybody seems to have got married or engaged to one of my songs. I make a joke on stage and say, "Before we leave the show tonight you're all going to find out where you were, what you were doing and who you were doing it with'. And that's what it is. I think the songs are so familiar that somewhere along the line you either met somebody, married somebody, you divorced somebody, broke up with somebody - it always happens.
"I remember once at a gig there was a lady crying in the audience to All Night Long, and I said, ‘Why you crying to that song?' She replied that she broke up with her boyfriend to that song and it was like…oh no."
And who'd have ever thought being diagnosed with ADAH (Attention Deficit Disorder) would be the reason for his success?
"This condition means I'm hyper-sensitive and I feel everything. The thing about that is it makes for a lousy lawyer but a great songwriter. I seem to be able to be able to put whatever I feel inside into words without really thinking.
"I once asked Michael Jordan what goes through his head when he makes a basket and he said ‘nothing'. I guess it's the same for me. Nothing goes through my mind, it just comes out and I can actually put what I think into simple words."
But, Lionel says, it was only until he experienced divorce that he really started to understand the effect his music had on the hearts of people around the world.
He added: "The first half of my life I was observing - watching people cry to my songs. The second half I have really lived it. When I got divorced, a close friend of mine called and said he was coming over with some tapes of inspiration to really get me back on track. He handed me a pile of my own music and told me to go and do what the rest of us had been doing for a lifetime. So there I was crying to my own songs.
"I wrote from the experience of watching people and only now am I starting to understand the actual experience itself."
Being emotional is something he is used to and says the "jock" image was never going to be his thing.
"I am emotional to the point where I wish I wasn't," said Richie. "When I hang out with my friends who play sports it's hard for me to walk in the door and go (picks up his shoulders and struts) ‘how you doin' guys?', They take one look at me and go ‘Lionel, don't even try it'.
Don't have ‘jock' attitude
"I just don't have that ‘jock' attitude you know - I'm the songwriter. But what I have found out about hanging with my testosterone brothers is that they desperately want to feel what I feel - and they don't understand how to get there.
"They come to me and say I'm having trouble with my wife or girlfriend and I say, Well did you tell her what you're telling me? and they go ‘urgh no'. It's a simple thing but they don't think like that. So I kind of find myself writing little notes for them - tell her this on post-it notes.
"But it's weird, to be honest with you. My life is one of those crazy lives where I just have to be able to divorce myself on certain days from it all. I've made friends with myself now. I used to try and be Lionel Richie the entertainer and Lionel Richie the private guy and it just doesn't work. I am that guy, I own it now."
Being Lionel Richie, you'd think there would be days when you'd wake up and realise what you've achieved and who you are. But for Lionel it's not a realisation which hits too often.
‘natural thing'
He said: "The only thing I know is that I have to get used to saying ‘hi' to everyone in the world. For instance, I came here and everybody talks to me. It's like when we played in Libya and we went straight to Gaddafi's house and I'm thinking well that's normal, everybody goes to Gaddafi's house...no, no everybody doesn't go to Gaddafi's house.
"It's just a natural thing. I realise now that I'm in places that people just don't go.
"And I'm right in the middle of it some days not realising what's going on - but I think I'm not going to take it seriously until I get a little older - because if you destroy the actual mystique of it all, it could all change. It's a bit like every once in a while I start getting a bit nervous when I get the lifetime achievement award and you start thinking oh my God - that sounds like the end to me.
"And I've turned a lot of those down because when you receive those awards they play back your life story on that screen and I don't want to see it yet. You know like ‘poor Lionel passed away'," he laughs.
"I am old enough now to stay off the pedestal. It's still there and I can get up for 60 seconds sometimes but then I like to get back down because there's nothing up there really. It's better down with your friends and family and new musicians."
Music industry today
But what does a legend like Richie think of the music industry today? With guest appearances on the Idol shows around the world, he has supported up-and-coming artists and still writes songs for singers and bands.
He said: "We were creative. Artists today are created. The industry has got used to these artists because of the Idol shows and all that stuff and creative artists are self-contained people - in other words - you don't remix a Springsteen album - know what I'm saying?
"When I got into the business you wanted to make sure you didn't sound like the other acts - that's the compliment, you have your own sound. Five seconds into Stevie Wonder's song - that's Stevie Wonder. Now, the song can be half way through the middle of it and I'll go who is it? Because the same producer and the same writer wrote for everybody. So it all sounds the same. I call that created.
"We Are The World was one of the best experiences of my career and ultimately what made it so interesting was that you only have half a line to sing - now that means they have to know your voice in half a line, which means now you're a stylist.
"If you can't hum a tune then it's not a song. The strongest test is to turn off the music and if you can still sing your song all the way through you have a great song. But more importantly if the audience can sing your song, even better. Especially if the guy in the front row can't sing and he's singing - loud. Loud and wrong," he laughs.
In common
Three Times A Lady will be a song which will stay with me forever and it seems Lionel and I have this in common - although, it would appear websites around the world have simply incorrectly guessed the inspiration of the song being about the three women in his life.
"That song is very special to me because it's about an amazing woman. My mother.
"My father made a speech one day to toast my mother and it stayed with me. He made it to a great mother, a great lady and a great friend. I didn't know how to put that into words so Three Times A Lady just came out."
And as if I wasn't star struck enough, Lionel gave me one final piece of advice. He said: "You have to have that song at your wedding because I'm sure you will be those three things to one lucky man."
And there it was, he'd done it again -concert or no concert he had a teary-eyed woman reaching for a tissue on his hands!
Where are you based?
I'm based in LA and have a hide out in Alabama.
How do you keep fit?
I work out three times a week, have a 14 year old son and have to be able to throw him across the room and have a daughter who is a soccer fanatic. I love to kick the ball with her.
If you could have a superpower what would it be?
I would want to fly and my catchline would be ‘wanna get away?' I'd fly to the Caribbean or Brazil or maybe Ibiza.
If you were the king of the world for a day what would you do?
I'd stop the wars and then feed the people.
What would you do for your last day on Earth?
Spend it with my family - if they wanted to spend it with me that is! Hopefully you did enough for your family that they want to spend the day with you.
Tell us one thing nobody knows about you?
I love gardening - I'm like Edward Scissorhands!
