The slow bluesy ballad Easy with its distinctive guitar glides was written by Lionel Richie and released by the Commodores in 1977. The song expresses relief as a relationship ends. Instead of feeling depressed, Richie declares he is “easy like Sunday morning”, evoking, he said, the atmosphere in small southern towns “that die at 11:30pm” on a Saturday night. Easy reached #9 in the UK charts.

Richie himself hailed from Tuskegee in Macon County, Alabama, with a population of less than 10,000. Tuskegee was originally Creek Indian land until President Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act of 1830 had most of the natives removed to west of the Mississippi River. The town then grew on the strength of slave-owning cotton plantations.

Listen now to Charlie Macdonald singing this great bluesy ballad by clicking/tapping the play button just below the image above.