| Lionel Richie on Kennedy Center Honors last night
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Anybody watch the Kennedy Center Honors on TV last night?
Honorees included Barbara Cook, Sonny Rollins, Meryl Streep, Neil Diamond, & Yo Yo Ma.
During the Neil Diamond tribute, Lionel Richie came out and sang "I Am I Said"
...and I swear, his phrasing and performance had the weirdest combination of Really Loose and Really Uptight simultaneously! It's hard to describe; he seemed really stiff, almost nervously perfunctory, like a textbook read-thru that he hadn't had time to fully integrate and relax with...and yet at the same time, he was slipping & sliding around the beat with his phrases like a jazz expressionist.
Or at least that's the way I heard it. Anyone else notice this, feel that something was a bit odd with his delivery? | 
