Grammy winner Marx to perform with Toledo Symphony
When Richard Marx released his self-titled debut in 1987, he hoped to sell enough records to make another album.
He did. More than three million copies, thanks to “Don’t Mean Nothing,” “Should Have Known Better,” “Endless Summer Nights” and “Hold on to the Nights.”
“Satisfied,” “Right Here Waiting” and “Angelina” from his 1989 follow-up, “Repeat Offender,” made him the first male solo artist to have his first seven singles hit the Top 5 on the Billboard Hot 100.
“It’s pretty much a blur and not because of drugs or booze because I was always pretty clean — when it comes to drugs, I’m still a drug virgin — it was just an immense amount of work,” Marx said of his success. “I toured for 30 months out of the first three years of my recording career.”
The singer-songwriter had a plan.
Richard Marx
“When I was having success, I felt like I was kicking and scratching and biting my way to having a career,” he said during a phone call from his Chicago home. “It was never about having a hit song or a hit record, it was about trying to carve out a hit career for myself.
“I knew even then that probably the best way for me to do that is what ultimately did happen. I had about 10 years of hits as a singer, and when that really slowed down to a crawl, instead of sort of just fading away, I put all my energy into writing and producing other people because that’s really how I started.”
Marx wrote “This I Promise You“ for N’Sync and co-wrote “Better Life” with Keith Urban. And in 2004, Marx and Luther Vandross won the Song of the Year Grammy for “Dance With My Father.”
“I just feel lucky that I’ve had quite a few hits since the peak of my singing career as a writer and producer for other people. That also allows me to work in so many different genres that I wouldn’t be able to do as a singer. As a singer, you can’t do a country record one year and an R&B record the next year,” Marx said. “But as a writer and a producer, I could do all those things, so that’s really great fun.”
And he’s having a blast performing. In 2006, he played in Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band.
“For me being the age I am and what I grew up with and The Beatles’ influence on all of us, to have 22 nights where I would look behind me and I’d be singing my songs, ‘Don’t Mean Nothing’ and ‘Should Have Known Better,’ and I would turn around and Ringo Starr is playing drums to my songs, it was just kind of mind-blowing,” the 46-year-old said. “And it was great fun for me to play on his great catalog of songs.”
Marx and Starr wrote a song, “Mystery of the Night,” which will be on Starr’s new disc to be released this year.
And Marx has been working with Matt Scannell of Vertical Horizon. The two have performed acoustically as Duo.
“We’re playing a Duo show the night before I come to Toledo, so he’s going to come with me and play in the band in the Toledo show, and we’ll probably do at least one song as a duo that night as well with the orchestra,” he said.
Marx will take the stage with the Toledo Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. Jan. 23 at Stranahan Theater. Tickets range from $35 to $75.
Press Release Contact Name: Vicki L. Kroll
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Organization Name: Toledo Free Press