The Commodores formed at Tuskegee Institute, Alabama, USA, in 1967, when two groups of students merged to form a six-piece band. Lionel Richie (b. 20 June 1949, Tuskegee, Alabama, USA; keyboards, saxophone, vocals), Thomas McClary (b. 6 October 1950; guitar) and William King (b. 30 January 1949, Alabama, USA; trumpet) had been members of the Mystics; Andre Callahan (drums), Michael Gilbert (bass) and Milan Williams (b. 28 March 1948, Mississippi, USA, d. 9 July 2006, Houston, Texas, USA; keyboards) previously played with the Jays. Callahan and Gilbert were replaced, respectively, by Walter ‘Clyde’ Orange (b. 10 December 1947, Florida, USA) and Ronald LaPread (b. 4 September 1950, Florida, USA), before the Commodores moved to New York in 1969, where they became established as a club band specializing in funk instrumentals. A year later, they recorded an album for Atlantic Records, left unissued at the time but subsequently released as Rise Up, which included instrumental cover versions of recent R&B hits, plus some original material.
In 1972, the band’s manager, Bernie Ashburn, secured them a support slot on an American tour with the Jackson Five, and the Commodores were duly signed to Motown Records. They continued to tour with the Jackson Five for three years, after which they supported the Rolling Stones on their 1975 US tour. By this time, their mix of hard-edged funk songs and romantic ballads, the latter mostly penned and sung by Richie, had won them a national following. The instrumental ‘Machine Gun’ gave them their first US hit, followed by ‘Slippery When Wet’. The Commodores soon found consistent success with Richie’s smooth ballads; ‘Sweet Love’, ‘Just To Be Close To You’ and ‘Easy’ all enjoyed huge transatlantic sales between 1975 and 1977. Although Clyde Orange’s aggressive ‘Too Hot To Trot’ broke the sequence of ballads in 1977, the Commodores were increasingly regarded as a soft-soul outfit. This perception was underlined when Richie’s sensitive love song to his wife, ‘Three Times A Lady’, became a number 1 record in the USA and UK, where it was Motown’s biggest-selling record to date. Their next Top 5 hit, ‘Sail On’, introduced a country flavour to Richie’s work, and he began to receive commissions to write material for artists such as Kenny Rogers. After ‘Still’ gave them another US pop and soul number 1 in 1979, confirming the Commodores as Motown’s best-selling act of the 70s, the band attempted to move into a more experimental blend of funk and rock on Heroes in 1980. The commercial failure of this venture, and the success of Lionel Richie’s duet with Diana Ross on ‘Endless Love’, persuaded him to leave the band for a solo career in 1983.
The remaining Commodores were initially overshadowed by the move, with the replacement Kevin Smith unable to emulate Richie’s role in live performances. In 1984, Thomas McClary also launched a solo career with an album for Motown. He was replaced by Englishman J.D. Nicholas (b. 12 April 1952, Watford, Hertfordshire, England), formerly vocalist with Heatwave, and this combination was featured on the band’s enormous 1985 hit ‘Nightshift’, an affecting, Grammy award-winning tribute to Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson that successfully captured Gaye’s shifting, rhythmic brand of soul. Later that year, the Commodores left Motown for Polydor Records, prompting LaPread to leave the band. Their new contract began promisingly with a major US soul chart hit, ‘Goin’ To The Bank’ (1986), but subsequent releases proved less successful. The Commodores made an unexpected return to the UK chart in 1988 when ‘Easy’ was used for a television commercial for the Halifax Building Society, and reached number 15, but this proved to be their final chart hit.
Although they long ago lost much of their status as one of America’s most popular soul bands, the Commodores, now reduced to a trio comprising Orange, King and Nicholas, continue to perform to loyal fans around the world. They also manage their own Commodores Records label.
