# Commodores
**The Commodores** are an American funk, soul, and R&B band formed in 1968 at Tuskegee Institute (now [Tuskegee University](https://www.edgepedia.org/tuskegee-university)) in Alabama, best known for their long tenure at Motown Records and crossover hits such as "Easy," "Brick House," "Three Times a Lady," and "[Nightshift](https://www.edgepedia.org/nightshift-song)." The group is credited with seven number one songs on the Billboard R&B chart and more than 50 albums in its catalog.[1](https://www.alamhof.org/commodore) Today the band continues to tour with a core of Walter "Clyde" Orange, William King, and J.D. Nicholas, backed by their five-piece band the Mean Machine.[2](https://www.ticketmaster.com/commodores-tickets/artist/734798)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Formed | 1968 at Tuskegee Institute, Alabama, when members of two campus bands, the Mystics and the Jays, merged[3](https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/the-commodores/) |
| Original lineup | William King (trumpet), Thomas McClary (guitar), Ronald LaPread (bass), Walter "Clyde" Orange (drums), Lionel Richie (saxophone, keyboards, vocals), Milan Williams (keyboards)[1](https://www.alamhof.org/commodore) |
| Motown signing | November 1972, after catching attention opening for the Jackson 5 tour[4](https://www.poprockbands.com/commodores/biography/prc.html) |
| First hit | "Machine Gun" (1974), an instrumental written by Milan Williams, No. 22 on the US pop chart[5](https://www.classicbands.com/commodores.html) |
| Chart record | Seven No. 1 songs on the Billboard R&B chart, including "Slippery When Wet," "Too Hot ta Trot," "Three Times a Lady," and "Still"[1](https://www.alamhof.org/commodore) • [2](https://www.ticketmaster.com/commodores-tickets/artist/734798) |
| Grammy | 1985 Grammy Award for "Nightshift" (Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group), their first and only win[1](https://www.alamhof.org/commodore) |
| Sales | Over 70 million albums sold worldwide, per the band's official biography[6](https://www.commodoreslive.com/bio) |
## Origins at Tuskegee
The band came together when members of two disbanded campus groups, the Mystics and the Jays, joined forces while all attended Tuskegee Institute. The classic six-man lineup paired [Lionel Richie](https://www.edgepedia.org/lionel-richie), Thomas McClary, and William King from the Mystics with Andre Callahan, Michael Gilbert, and Milan Williams from the Jays; after early personnel changes the settled lineup was King on trumpet, McClary on guitar, Ronald LaPread on bass, Orange on drums, Richie on saxophone, and Williams on keyboards.[3](https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/the-commodores/) • [4](https://www.poprockbands.com/commodores/biography/prc.html) The name itself was a lucky accident: with the group unable to agree on one, Orange handed King a dictionary and told him to pick a word, and King chose "commodore."[1](https://www.alamhof.org/commodore)
Their earliest purpose was modest. Richie later described the goal as playing every party on campus; the band became known around central Alabama as a hot party band.[3](https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/the-commodores/) Early club dates included a New York engagement at Smalls Paradise, where a standing-room-only crowd led the owner to book two more weeks.[7](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/commodores-p3948)
## The Motown years
The band's long association with Motown began in 1971, when manager Benny Ashburn, a liquor marketing executive they had met in 1969, secured them the opening slot on a Jackson 5 tour through Motown executive [Suzanne de Passe](https://www.edgepedia.org/suzanne-de-passe). They signed a recording contract in November 1972.[3](https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/the-commodores/) • [4](https://www.poprockbands.com/commodores/biography/prc.html) Their debut single, the up-tempo instrumental "Machine Gun," was recorded in [Muscle Shoals, Alabama](https://www.edgepedia.org/muscle-shoals-alabama); its title was suggested by Motown founder [Berry Gordy](https://www.edgepedia.org/berry-gordy) from an earlier name, "The Ram." It reached No. 22 on the US pop chart and Top 10 on the R&B chart, followed by "I Feel Sanctified" and the group's first No. 1 record, "Slippery When Wet."[1](https://www.alamhof.org/commodore) • [5](https://www.classicbands.com/commodores.html)
The band's sound split into two recognizable strands: hard Southern funk with animated lead vocals from Richie and Orange, and smooth Richie ballads. A 1977 concert review in the New Zealand magazine *Rip It Up* called them "probably one of the best bands around for sheer funk and tight composite sound" and "one of the least MOR acts to emerge from Motown," pushing back against a tendency to dismiss the band as disco.[8](https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/RIU19770601.2.21) Critics elsewhere judged the two strands differently: [Robert Christgau](https://www.edgepedia.org/robert-christgau)'s consumer guide praised "Brick House," "Machine Gun," and "Slippery When Wet" while dinging the Richie ballads, and a 1979 Washington Post review of funk grouped the Commodores among bands that dressed up "schmaltzy ballads and mindless party music" with fuzzy basses and punchy horns.[9](https://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=Commodores) • [10](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1979/11/21/uncle-jam-fulfilling-the-promise-of-funk/67b12563-08eb-4e18-a863-e06ec943218f/)
**Peak success.** The 1977 album *Commodores*, the band's fifth, delivered two Top 5 Hot 100 singles, the funk anthem "Brick House" (composed by the entire sextet) and the Richie ballad "Easy," and spent a year on the Billboard best-sellers list, including eight weeks at No. 1 on the R&B rankings. Between 1977 and 1978 three consecutive Commodores albums reached the Top 3 of the [Billboard](https://www.edgepedia.org/billboard-magazine) pop chart, which Motown's own history page describes as a unique achievement for a Motown act.[11](https://classic.motown.com/story/commodores-commodores/) • [12](https://classic.motown.com/artist/the-commodores/) The ballad streak continued with "Three Times a Lady," a chart-topping 1978 single written, according to a band history, as a personal thank-you from Richie to his wife Brenda, and the consecutive No. 1 singles "Too Hot ta Trot," "Three Times a Lady," and "Still."[1](https://www.alamhof.org/commodore) • [3](https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/the-commodores/) The band was for a while nicknamed "the Black Beatles" for its global popularity.[12](https://classic.motown.com/artist/the-commodores/)
Richie also began writing outside the band: "Lady" for [Kenny Rogers](https://www.edgepedia.org/kenny-rogers), a six-week Hot 100 No. 1 at the end of 1980, and the duet "Endless Love" with [Diana Ross](https://www.edgepedia.org/diana-ross). Motown's history records that the following summer Richie became the first artist in popular music history to appear in the Top 10 simultaneously as composer, performer, and/or producer of three hits: Rogers' "I Don't Need You," the Commodores' "Lady (You Bring Me Up)," and "Endless Love."[12](https://classic.motown.com/artist/the-commodores/)
## Life after Richie
Richie left the group in 1982 to pursue a solo career, and manager Benny Ashburn, whom band members called "the seventh Commodore" and "the glue," died of a heart attack the same year. William King later said losing Ashburn was "more of a blow to the Commodores than if Richie had quit 20 times."[3](https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/the-commodores/) • [13](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-03-31-ca-18749-story.html) The first post-Richie album, *Commodores 13* (1983), arrived at the same time as Richie's solo *[Can't Slow Down](https://www.edgepedia.org/cant-slow-down-lionel-richie-album)*, which went on to become the biggest album in Motown history, selling more than 8 million copies; radio programmers, the band reported, considered their record too much like Richie's.[13](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-03-31-ca-18749-story.html)
The regrouping produced the band's biggest late success. J.D. Nicholas, a British singer formerly with the funk band Heatwave, joined in 1984, and "Nightshift," written by Orange as a tribute to the recently deceased soul singers [Marvin Gaye](https://www.edgepedia.org/marvin-gaye) and [Jackie Wilson](https://www.edgepedia.org/jackie-wilson), returned the band to the Top 3 of the pop chart and won the group its first and only Grammy Award, as Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group. *Nightshift* (1985) was also the band's last album to go gold.[1](https://www.alamhof.org/commodore) • [12](https://classic.motown.com/artist/the-commodores/) • [3](https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/the-commodores/)
After a dispute with Motown over the scheduling of their next record against Richie's *Dancing on the Ceiling*, the band signed with Polydor, releasing *United* in 1986, which the Los Angeles Times found uneven and "an assembly-line pastiche" built largely by outside songwriting and production teams, and *Rock Solid* in 1988. LaPread left after *United*, and Williams departed soon after the band canceled a 1988 performance at Sun City Resort in South Africa under anti-apartheid pressure.[14](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-12-21-ca-3787-story.html) • [3](https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/the-commodores/) In 1992 the group founded its own label, Commodores Records and [Entertainment](https://www.edgepedia.org/entertainment).[3](https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/the-commodores/)
## The band today
Since the 1990s the touring lineup has been reduced to a core trio of Orange, King, and Nicholas, who record and perform with the Mean Machine.[1](https://www.alamhof.org/commodore) • [2](https://www.ticketmaster.com/commodores-tickets/artist/734798) Recent setlists center on the classics, pairing "Easy," "Three Times a Lady," and "Nightshift" with "Brick House" and "Lady (You Bring Me Up)."[2](https://www.ticketmaster.com/commodores-tickets/artist/734798) In 2015 a former band bodyguard opened the Commodores Museum in Tuskegee, in the band's former rehearsal and recording space, with costumes, instruments, and other memorabilia left largely untouched since 1982.[3](https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/the-commodores/)
Milan Williams died on July 9, 2006.[1](https://www.alamhof.org/commodore) Co-founder and bassist Ronald LaPread, whose bass line anchors "Brick House," died in 2026 at the age of 75; he had revealed shortly before that he had offered the song to the group for free just to get it on the album, saying bandmates initially judged it "too black."[15](https://www.musicradar.com/artists/i-said-i-tell-you-what-i-will-give-this-song-to-the-group-just-put-it-on-the-album-commodores-bassist-ronald-lapread-who-has-died-at-the-age-of-75-said-that-one-of-his-greatest-basslines-might-never-have-been-heard)
## References
1. [The Commodores, Alabama Music Hall of Fame](https://www.alamhof.org/commodore)
2. [Commodores Tickets, 2026-2027 Concert Tour Dates, Ticketmaster](https://www.ticketmaster.com/commodores-tickets/artist/734798)
3. [The Commodores, Encyclopedia of Alabama](https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/the-commodores/)
4. [Commodores Biography, PopRockBands](https://www.poprockbands.com/commodores/biography/prc.html)
5. [The Commodores, ClassicBands.com](https://www.classicbands.com/commodores.html)
6. [Biography, The Commodores (official site)](https://www.commodoreslive.com/bio)
7. [Commodores Biography by Craig Lytle, AllMusic](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/commodores-p3948)
8. [COMMODORES, Rip It Up, 1 June 1977, Papers Past (National Library of New Zealand)](https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/RIU19770601.2.21)
9. [Robert Christgau: Consumer Guide, Commodores](https://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=Commodores)
10. ['Uncle Jam': Fulfilling the Promise of Funk, The Washington Post, 21 November 1979](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1979/11/21/uncle-jam-fulfilling-the-promise-of-funk/67b12563-08eb-4e18-a863-e06ec943218f/)
11. [Commodores: Commodores, Classic Motown Albums](https://classic.motown.com/story/commodores-commodores/)
12. [The Commodores, Classic Motown Artists](https://classic.motown.com/artist/the-commodores/)
13. [COMMODORES: LIFE AFTER LIONEL RICHIE, Los Angeles Times, 31 March 1985](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-03-31-ca-18749-story.html)
14. ['UNITED,' UNEVEN, Los Angeles Times, 21 December 1986](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-12-21-ca-3787-story.html)
15. [Commodores bassist Ronald LaPread has died at the age of 75, MusicRadar](https://www.musicradar.com/artists/i-said-i-tell-you-what-i-will-give-this-song-to-the-group-just-put-it-on-the-album-commodores-bassist-ronald-lapread-who-has-died-at-the-age-of-75-said-that-one-of-his-greatest-basslines-might-never-have-been-heard)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Music › Musicians and ensembles › Ensembles and groups › Rock, pop, and metal bands › Rock, indie, and pop groups › Rock bands › Funk rock and rap rock bands*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license