Songfacts®:

• This was Richie's first solo single after leaving the Commodores earlier in the year. With that group, he wrote and sang on a number of hits, including "Three Times A Lady" and "Still." While still with the group, he wrote and produced the Kenny Rogers #1 hit "Lady" and also the smash duet with Diana Ross, "Endless Love."
  
  "Truly" stayed in his sweet spot of devotional ballads, and again he rose to the top: the song hit #1 on the Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts, and rose to #2 R&B.
• Richie's co-producer on this track was James Anthony Carmichael, who worked on most of the Commodores material.
• After 18 nominations (mostly for songs with the Commodores), Richie finally won his first Grammy when this took the award for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male in 1983. Richie almost skipped the ceremony, as he was nominated each of the previous five years and had come up empty handed each time.
• This song got no help from MTV because Richie didn't make a video for it. He had little reason to: The network shied away from ballads and didn't play black artists in earnest until Prince and Michael Jackson broke through the following year. He made a video for his next single, the uptempo "You Are," but MTV didn't play it. The following year, he made videos for the singles from his, Can't Slow Down album, and they became some of the most-played on the network, especially "All Night Long (All Night)" and "Hello."