Deep into the night of Jan. 28, 1985, when arguably the greatest collection of pop and rock and country stars ever assembled in one room had gathered at the A&M Recording Studios in Hollywood to record the charity single “We Are the World” to raise money to combat starvation in Africa, particularly Ethiopia, the great Stevie Wonder pitched the idea of singing a chorus in Swahili.
It was a well-intentioned suggestion, but it stopped the recording session cold.
Someone heard the great Waylon Jennings exercise his right to be xenophobic by saying, “Well, ain’t no good ol’ boy ever sung Swahili. Think I’m outta here.’ ”
Lionel Richie, who co-wrote “We Are the World” with Michael Jackson and was essentially the talent wrangler the night of the recording, recalls the moment in a present-day interview for “The Greatest Night in Pop,” a fascinating and breezy documentary about that night’s recording session.
“Waylon walks out the door, saying, ‘I’m not dealing with this, I don’t know what that means,’ ” Richie says. “And we lost Waylon right there.”
Cut to the archival footage, with an off-camera voice noting, “They don’t speak Swahili in Ethiopia.”
Bob Geldof, whose “Do They Know it’s Christmas?” the year prior was the inspiration for the USA for Africa fundraiser, respectfully lobbied Wonder to drop the idea. “There’s no point in talking to the people who ARE starving,” he tells Wonder. “We’re talking to the people who’ve got the money to give.” The notion is scrapped.
It’s these little hiccups and anecdotes that make the documentary such a compelling watch, for instance when Paul Simon looked around the room filled with superstars and joked that, if a bomb landed on the studio, John Denver would be back on top. Or when Ray Charles said he needed to use the bathroom, and Wonder offered to show him where it was.
Directed by Bao Nguyen, who expertly combines the multi-camera recordings from the night of the session with new interviews with Richie, Cyndi Lauper, Kenny Loggins, Huey Lewis, Smokey Robinson and Bruce Springsteen, as well as technicians who were there, “The Greatest Night in Pop” is a terrific behind-the-scenes chronicle of the making of a single that sold 20 million copies worldwide, won multiple Grammys and, most important, of course, raised more than $60 million in 1985 dollars.
Sure, you can liken the tune itself to a Pepsi jingle, as the critic Greil Marcus wrote at the time. But “We Are the World” was a commercial for compassion.
Springsteen, who had just completed the “Born in the USA” tour and was running on fumes the night of the recording, notes that the song was primarily a tool to deliver a message, a rallying cry for help, and, as such, it succeeded brilliantly.
In the early stages of the 95-minute documentary, we’re taken through the songwriting process, with Richie and Jackson hurriedly crafting the tune to have it ready on the night of Jan. 25, when dozens of the world’s biggest stars would be in Los Angeles for the American Music Awards.
With Quincy Jones producing and a handwritten sign saying, “CHECK YOUR EGO AT THE DOOR,” the 46-member super-group knocked out the song over the course of eight hours.
It’s great fun to hear Dionne Warwick’s honey-coated voice meshing with Willie Nelson’s raw but still smooth vocals and to see how Wonder used his incredible mimicry skills to show Bob Dylan how Dylan could contribute his lines.
There also are bittersweet moments, as when Sheila E. recalls how the organizers kept prodding her to get Prince to show up: “They kept asking, ‘Well, do you think you can get Prince here?’ I just started feeling like … I’m being used, [that I’m] here because they want Prince to show up. … I told Lionel, I said, ‘I’m gonna go.’ They never intended on me singing a verse, which was a little bit heartbreaking.”
Prince wanted to play a guitar solo in another room, and there was no guitar solo in the song, and the whole idea was to have everyone in the same room. He was a no-show.
Mostly, though, “The Greatest Night in Pop” is a celebration.
Looking back all these years later, it’s something of a miracle that, in the days before texts and emails, when you had to communicate by fax and messenger and landline phone calls, so many performers who were used to being the biggest star in the room agreed to get together on relatively short notice and figure out a path to record one of the most impactful singles in music history.
