FOLLOW me on my popular Twitter feed. Just click this photo! @hbbtruth - David - Common sense on #Politics #PublicPolicy #Sports #PopCulture in USA, Great Britain, Sweden and France, via my life in #Texas #Memphis #Miami #IU #Chicago #DC #FL 🛫🌍📺📽️🏈. Photo is of Elvis and Joan Blackman in 'Blue Hawaii'

Beautiful Stockholm at night, looking west towards Gamla Stan

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Fascinating interview with Lionel Richie on being a survivor: on Hollywood fame, divorces, parenting, daughter Nicole's problems, dealing with death of famous friends; duet with Jill Johnson - "Sail on" LIVE on SVT's Fredrik Skavlan Show. Excellent!; @jilljohnsons, #teamjill

 
jilljohnsonmusic YouTube Channel video: "Sail On" - Lionel Richie and Jill Johnson. LIVE on SVT's Skavlan Show. Aired March 9, 2012. Uploaded March 10, 2012. http://youtu.be/BatEw1Ci24U

This post was updated in December 2014.

As originally seen at 
http://svtplay.se/v/2737137/skavlan/lionel_richie_och_jill_johnson_-_sail_on?sb,k104116,1,f,-1
The SVT Play video lapsed in March of 2013 so I replaced that video with this version from Jill Johnson's YouTube Channel.

I LOVE THIS VERSION!


Through complete sheer serendipity, while looking thru my nightly check list of foreign Internet sources to see before going to sleep, while checking out some things on the always interesting Swedish Television SVT Play website, which I spend lots of time at, I found this utterly fascinating interview with Grammy Award-winning singer Lionel Richie on talk show host Fredrik Skavlan's very popular Friday night TV show, which airs on both SVT and NRK, the Norwegian TV/Radio service.

If I recall correctly, I read this episode from last Friday drew three million TV viewers combined.


I last mentioned Skavlan last year when I posted his interview with singer Robin Gibb of The Bee Gees on his amazing career, his recent health problems, his remarkably talented family and his efforts to help get an RAF WWII Memorial constructed in London, here:

FEBRUARY 12, 2011 
Robin Gibb and Carola sing "How Deep Is Your Love" on SVT's "Skavlan"; 20-minute interview also!
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/robin-gibb-and-carola-sing-how-deep-is.html

In this interview, conducted in English and originally with Swedish subtitles, Richie speaks candidly with Skavlan about being a survivor: on fame in Hollywood, his two divorces, learning to be a strong parent when his now-equally famous daughter, Nicole Richie, had her substance abuse problems, dealing with death of longtime famous friends like Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and Luther Vandross, and how their untimely deaths have changed him and dampened his view of the music industry.


And, of course, there the sweet duet of "Sail on" afterwards that he performs up at the top of this post with popular Swedish Country music singer Jill Johnson.


As regular readers of this blog know from how many times I've posted about her here in the past, I absolutely adore Jill, and could listen to her sing anything, which is why I subscribe to her terrific YouTube Channel, which is usually pretty current compared to most.
http://www.youtube.com/user/jilljohnsonmusic

Jill also sang in December's annual SVT St. Lucia telecast that was great -as usual!

I watched that telecast LIVE online via SVT Play, just like the previous year.  

Originally seen at http://svtplay.se/t/102974/skavlan until 
April 8th, 2012, as follows,
0:35:36  Intro to Lionel Richie... interview, leading to at 0:52:20 the introduction to song, which closes the show.
As usual, the SVT audio and video quality is amazing, so be sure to click fullskärm for the full screen.

With that episode of the show no longer available in full length, here is most of the Richie interview in two parts


Lionel Richie Interview Part 1 Skavlan


Lionel Richie Interview Part 2 Skavlan

Here's a photo of the three of them that was placed on a Jill Facebook fan page
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=408307265851894&set=a.296809090335046.95935.159825464033410&type=1&ref=nf

Skavlan homepage at SVT
http://www.svt.se/skavlan/
Twitter: @SKAVLANTVShow

http://www.jilljohnson.se/

Twitter @jilljohnsons