Our final song this week from today’s singer, who joins us at 7:40 this morning, is yet ANOTHER love letter to his wife, actress Cynthia Rhodes. You gotta wonder what his current wife, Daisy Fuentes, thinks when she hears all these songs he wrote for Cynthia, to whom he was married from from 1989-2014!
He says "I wrote the song for my wife Cynthia who was in South Africa shooting for a film. We were not married then and I wanted to meet her because I had not seen her for a few months. But my visa application was rejected and when I came back I wrote this song which was more of a letter from me to her.
It was the fastest song I wrote, in barely 20 minutes. And this was the time when there was no Skype and Social networking so I had to ship the track to her. The song was very personal and was not intended to go public. But my friends pursued me to record it."
Always a musical romance man, today’s singer was 18 when he left his hometown of Chicago and headed to LA, where another commercial-minded musician, Lionel Richie, took the young singer-songwriter under his wing.
After a 5-year apprenticeship in which he sang harmonies on several of Richie's hits and had some of his compositions recorded by artists such as Kenny Rogers and Chicago, today’s singer finally landed his own recording contract. And he was poised for stardom: His self-titled 1987 debut album, which included the #1 song "Hold On To The Nights” yielded four top-10 hits!
Spotify revealed that just ahead of Valentine's Day, 2013 this was their most popular love song, narrowly ahead of Foreigner's "I Want To Know What Love Is." The list was based on streaming figures from their 'love song' playlists .
Today’s singer originally pitched the song to Barbra Streisand. But she had a few issues with his lyrics. "She called and said, 'I love this music, this melody is gorgeous, but if I'm going to record it, I'm going to need you to rewrite the lyrics because I'm not going to be right here waiting for anybody,'
Richard Marx. Right Here Waiting. I Know That Song!
Preorder Stories To Tell: A Memoir, it comes out Tuesday. And today you can download the companion release “Stories To Tell: Greatest Hits And More” Richard Marx
If you missed our interview with Richard, it's below.
Have a great 4th, we'll see you back here Monday July 12.
Stacey & Mike
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