Lionel Richie Will Be Back For More

In 2012, Lionel Richie took a big chance, going against his traditional audience and releasing Tuskegee, an album featuring duets of his hits sung with some of country's biggest stars (Blake Shelton, Willie Nelson and Luke Bryan among others). His gamble paid off, as It became the fourth biggest-selling country album of the year, selling more than a million copies. Almost immediately, fans and industry insiders alike began clammering for the sequel.

"It's coming," Richie promised Rolling Stone Country recently. Lionel was backstage at Wednesday's CMT Awards, where he and Luke Bryan won the CMT Performance of the Year honors for their duet of Richie classics, "Oh No" and "All Night Long."

The project is still in the early stages, but the planning for it has been going on since the making of the original project. It wasn't long after the first album was underway that Richie realized the amount of incredible country talent that was available and with whom he'd love to collaborate. Richie's still deciding on the lineup for the next project, but there are already two big names on his wish list.

"Luke is there," he said. "Keith Urban. These are 'the guys,' as far as the next group I want to play with onstage. See, I always translate things to stage. You can't have that much fun backstage if you can't have it onstage. That's where I'm going right now."