{"id":275294,"date":"2025-11-06T14:28:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T14:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/275294\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T14:28:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T14:28:09","slug":"richard-marxs-first-no-1-as-a-songwriter-was-this-1984-kenny-rogers-single","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/275294\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard Marx\u2019s First No. 1 as a Songwriter Was This 1984 Kenny Rogers Single"},"content":{"rendered":"

Years before Richard Marx<\/a> hit it big with his late-\u201980s megahits \u201cShould\u2019ve Known Better,\u201d \u201cHold On to the Night,\u201d and \u201cRight Here Waiting,\u201d he was working as a session musician and backing vocalist after trekking to Los Angeles at 17 after his cassette of songs landed in Lionel Richie<\/a>\u2018s hands. Eventually, Richie recommended Marx to\u00a0Kenny Rogers<\/a> as a backing singer, a union that led to the young songwriter\u2019s first No. 1 hits.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe [Rogers] was there in the studio and I went up to him and said, \u2018I\u2019m a songwriter and I\u2019d love to play you a song I wrote for you,\u201d\u00a0recalled Marx<\/a>\u00a0of his first meeting with Rogers. \u201cAnd he should have thrown me out of the studio. He should have had security throw me on the street. But he was cool and said, \u2018Let me hear it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Marx continued, \u201cAnd we sat at the piano and he cut my song. And then he cut two more of my songs, and that launched my songwriting career.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with recording Dolly Parton<\/a>\u2018s \u201cThe Stranger,\u201d Rogers cut three of Marx\u2019s songs: \u201cCrazy,\u201d released as the second single, which went to No. 1 on the Country and Adult Contemporary charts, and the more pop-leaning \u201cSomebody Took My Love,\u201d co-written with David Pomeranz.<\/p>\n

[RELATED: 20 Songs You Didn\u2019t Know Richard Marx Wrote for Other Artists]<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat About Me\u201d<\/p>\n

The third song Rogers cut, the title track and lead single, was\u00a0sung in trio with James Ingram and Kim Carnes,\u00a0and topped the Adult Contemporary chart. Along with co-writing the song with Rogers and producer David Foster, Marx also added background vocals on the track.<\/p>\n

Centered around a love triangle, \u201cWhat About Me?\u201d also marked Marx\u2019s first No. 1 as a songwriter.
I see you here with me
I\u2019ve waited all my life for someone like you
Someone to give my heart and soul to<\/p>\n

I look into your eyes
Your look for me was such a welcome surprise
I think at last I\u2019ve found forever<\/p>\n

\"\"Richard Marx (Photo: Jamieson Mundy)<\/p>\n

Oh, what about me?
I\u2019ll always love you
Oh, what about me?
I\u2019ll always need you
You were my love before, but I need so much more of you<\/p>\n

Time after time, I feel I\u2019m losing my mind
Or maybe this is what lovers must go through
It never entered my mind
We could be wasting our time
What am I gonna do?<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re 18 or 19 years old, and now you start going, \u2018Yeah, my buddy Lionel Richie and I went to lunch the other day,\u2019\u201d said Marx<\/a>, who was still in his teens when he started working with Rogers during the early \u201980s and had his second No. 1 with the country legend with the release of his second single \u201cCrazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember once doing a session with Kenny Rogers at his studio called Lion Share, and in one studio down the hallway was Rod Stewart and down another hallway was David Lee Roth, and passing these guys in the hallway, and just being part of that scene,\u201d added Marx. \u201cBeing able to work within the industry as a songwriter, as a musician, as a background singer, I wouldn\u2019t trade it. It was really fun and exciting, going studio to studio.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo: Rebecca Sapp \/ Getty Images for The Recording Academy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Years before Richard Marx hit it big with his late-\u201980s megahits \u201cShould\u2019ve Known Better,\u201d \u201cHold On to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,146665,216,146666],"class_list":{"0":"post-275294","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-kenny-rogers","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-richard-marx"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}