Lionel Richie has been very emotional recently, however he desires to reassure everybody that he’s okay.

Based on Richie, it’s simply been a heady expertise to look again practically 40 years and relive all of the wondrous and chaotic recollections of writing and recording “We Are the World” for the brand new Netflix documentary “The Best Evening in Pop.”

“Each section of this journey, I cry,” Richie mentioned on the Selection Studio introduced by Audible at Sundance Movie Competition, the place the movie made its world premiere. “It simply brings tears to my eyes as a result of a few of us aren’t right here anymore. Additionally it was our innocence. We really had been making a distinction, so to see the naive model of ourselves, after we really had an aha second that we would take all this celeb and alter the world … I’m simply emotional about it as a result of I get to look at my child being born once more.”

It’s particularly bittersweet as a result of “Michael’s not right here,” Richie added, referring to “We Are the World” co-writer Michael Jackson, who died in 2009. “There needs to be one other man sitting right here going, ‘Lionel, what do you suppose we’re going to do?’” he mentioned, affecting Jackson’s high-pitched frequency. “I want him right here to let you know the humorous components about it as a result of in all of this, we had been simply two creatives having the perfect time of our lives pulling from the universe.”

These intimate recollections had been exactly what director Bao Nguyen and producer Julia Nottingham aimed to seize within the documentary, which chronicles the unbelievable story of how the observe received made.

On Jan. 25, 1985, 46 music icons — led by Richie, Jackson and Quincy Jones — got here collectively for a marathon eight-hour recording session of “We Are the World” after the American Music Awards. The monumental collaboration was documented for the recording of the music video, however the brand new documentary contains large quantities of recent materials, together with retrospective interviews with Richie, Cyndi Lauper, Huey Lewis, Kenny Loggins, Sheila E., Smokey Robinson, Bruce Springsteen and Dionne Warwick, in addition to never-before-heard recordings of Richie and Jackson writing the long-lasting track.

“The factor that unlocked the documentary was the footage from USA for Africa. They had been wonderful and had stored all of the archive,” Nottingham defined. “Half two, there was a journalist [David Breskin], and he was sensible sufficient to show his dictaphone on day one. And he didn’t flip it off till that they had completed the track.”

What moved Nguyen most in these recordings had been moments of vulnerability from the artists, which helped form the movie’s narrative.

“Michael and Lionel writing and simply understanding the stress — that Quincy is knocking on doorways, like ‘The place’s the lyrics?’ All of us have skilled that … All of us can relate to when somebody is simply pushing a deadline,” Nguyen mentioned. “Then, after we get into the recording studio, there’s so many moments the place these icons of American music and popular culture — who’re legends, who’ve sang essentially the most iconic and well-known songs — they’re scared out of [their] thoughts for that one night time.”

The magic is what occurred subsequent: these singular abilities, from throughout all genres of music, morphed right into a household.

“Everybody’s serving to one another. Everybody’s selecting one another up,” Nguyen mentioned. “That was a extremely lovely second that I don’t suppose individuals understand once they hear the track. I imply, the track is so lovely and such like a collective name to unity, however that night time was too.”

Wanting again on the footage helped Richie keep in mind the individuality of the expertise. “You really noticed the chaos,” he mentioned. “I forgot about that. It’s like the rest — once you end a home, you don’t keep in mind that there was a delay on the steps, a delay on the home equipment … It was chaos, nevertheless it was a lovely nest of chaos.”

Watch the complete dialog above.