One Light Burning....

Do you mean Richie's lead vocals being on tape? Are you sure about that? Do you have any evidence to support it?

I checked the On Lead Guitar album on Spotify and while the chorus may sound too perfect, I would be more inlined to think this is some post-show correction and not playback. Plus, here's another performance and it has a few bum notes here and there (but is otherwise great), which makes me think it's 100% live:

For what it's worth...

From Forbes interview with Bryan Reesman about his new BJ biography:

(https://www.forbes.com/sites/shawnse.../#22ffb94a381b)

From Stranger in this Town, by Neil Daniels:

Stranger is one of my all time favorite albums. Absolutely love OLB - but to me, more than the candle theme something about it has the same tone or feel as Keep the Candle Burning on AMOL. Love them both, but IF he were to do either live, I could see him leaning towards Candle, newer vocal range and he was co invested with Dangerbird, so up sales of AMOL are probably more in his interest. BUT - I've not heard of him even doing Candle live since 2012. Last year the only Richie song was Every Road - but even that since she recorded it on her "Best Of" album is not just his anymore. Just another reason I personally don't care for this new duo - His solo work deserved far more than it ever received and now that he could utilize it - he's not.

The keep Stranger lower on the popularity/success/promotion so as not to run any risk of pulling away from BJ during the height - interesting theory. I've not heard it that way before. I've always figured that BJ was the primary interest but not that it was in any way an intentional move. In retrospect it did just disappear from airplay as if someone pulled the plug.

The rumour is just too painful, I hope it's not true.

The combination of 'Ballad Of Youth'/'One Light Burning' is something special. Richie's two best efforts in my opnion, although I love 'All That Really Matters' from his second album.

The end of Stranger is incredibly hard to sing from "Midnight pain is coming down" onwards. I'm no professional singer, but I play a bit and I can't hit those notes at the end of Stranger at all.

The high parts in One Light chorus are softer and therefore easier to hit. At least for me...however, you're right the higher parts are in every chorus, so it may take a bit more out of him to sing the whole thing....

I presumed the previous comment meant that there were some backing vocals on tape, which I'm not even sure that is the case, he has some great backing singers on the Stranger tour, and his lead was certainly never on tape.

One Light Burning is definitely the more demanding of the two songs (comparing it with Stranger).

Richie's singing throughout the upper 4th octave throughout OLB. He has to navigate through the main vocal passaggio points for his voice type (a high-ish baritone). Plus - singing closed vowels on A4s (One Light Burniiiiiiiing) is tough.

None of that means anything to me, so I bow down to your superior knowledge!

All I know is that while it's not easy task, I can sing OLB all the way through ok, but I can't for the life of me sing the end of Stranger without sounding like a strangled cat! (the rest of Stranger I can do fine, and is much easier compared to OLB)

Nah... I sing a bit for fun - not at all professional. It's just terms I've picked up from talking with people that know lots more than me!

Stranger is a tough song as well - and that final chorus is high (topping at C#5) and demanding. At least in Stranger - there's more room to breath before those higher bits. One Light Burning has the melody lines sung more frequently in the upper 4th octave. That song is deceptively hard to sing.

Stranger In This Town is a great album - love it more than most Bon Jovi albums. Richie sounds great throughout it.

Too bad he went solo (again) when most of this voice is gone Years of abusing finally takes a toll.