Richard Marx recently reposted Phone Screener Abby's cover of his song "Right Here Waiting," giving his stamp of approval on her version. She asked him to come on The Bobby Bones Show for Bones to chat with him about his career and his thoughts on her talents.
A stamp of approval is exactly what Marx gave Abby's singing and her cover of his song. He told Bones that he only shares peoples' versions of his songs if he thinks they are super good. If it was just ok, he would have only commented on it or wrote something back. Whenever he shares a cover, he wants to make sure it wouldn't hurt his fans ears, so he wouldn't have reposted it if he didn't think his fans would enjoy it. Regardless of how good a version, Marx acknowledged it is the ultimate compliment for a songwriter and artist whenever someone covers their song. He encouraged Abby to continue pursuing her dream, because he thinks she has the talent do it. Adding that she should find songs to cover and put them out on the Internet to be seen and get attention from the right people. Also noting that he thinks she should cover songs where people can't compare her voice to the original artist, which is why he thinks her covering his song was a smart move. Before turning things over to Bones, Abby asked Marx to reach out to her if he had any songs that needed to be recorded.
Marx has been a songwriter since his high school days. He had a cassette tape full of his songs, which had his parent's home phone number written on the back of it. Somehow that cassette tape made its way to Lionel Richie, who ended up calling Marx at his parent's house. Richie encouraged him to move to Los Angeles when he graduated, which Marx definitely did. upon moving to LA, Marx became the background singer for Richie on his first solo album after his split from the Commodores. After that Richie recommended Marx to Kenny Rogers for his studio project. When Marx met Rogers, he asked if he could play him one of the songs he had written for him. Rogers let him play it and he ended up recording it for that album. But it didn't stop there, he went on to cut two more of Marx' songs. Marx credits Richie for many things in his successful career, adding that his soul is just the kindest and he truly wants to help other people. Other than Olivia Newton-John, Marx said Richie is the only person who never acted like a superstar and loved to just hang with people. Since working with these two legends in music, Marx went on to work with Darius Rucker, Keith Urban, and Randy Houser to name a few.
On his new album Songwriter, Marx actually has a song on there that he wrote with Urban. The two of them have a long history, they've written 3 of Urban's songs together: "Better Life," "Long Hot Summer," and "Everybody." Each of the songs come with their own story. Urban almost didn't cut "Better Life," he was over it by the time they were ready to record it, but ended up deciding to go in the studio and cutting it anyway. "Everybody" was a song Urban loved immediately, but then a few days later didn't like it. Marx took it into the studio and recorded it with his producer. Urban heard the studio version and told Marx he messed up and wanted the song back. Both "Long Hot Summer" and "Better Life" went on to be number 1 hits for Urban. "One Day Longer" is the song on Marx' new album that he and Urban wrote together and the journey of this song was similar to the ones they wrote together before. He's had it for awhile and thought it was time to pull it off the computer to put it out on this album. The new project will be out on September 30th.