![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() At this stage, Milan Williams was penning much of the material but they also took on board the Gloria Jones cut “Assembly Line” and hit the dance floor on “The Bump” and in “Rapid Fire” – R&B gems both.Ĭaught in the Act (1975) is equally fine with Richie, Williams, King, Thomas McClary, Walter Orange and Ronald LaPraed revealing them to be splendid musicians who could incorporate brass and punchy riffs into killer tracks like “Slippery When Wet” and the lengthy “You Don’t Know That I Know”. Their debut album featured the instrumental title track “Machine Gun” and sold well throughout 19 thanks to a hybrid of crafted funk and no dross – this was a lean and hungry introduction. “Nightshift” pulled in a Grammy and they should have won far more but their legacy lies in induction to the Vocal Group Hall of Fame and the millions of albums whose sales they helmed.įormed as a collegiate act in the late 1960s in Tuskegee, Alabama they were originally The Mystics and briefly The Jays until William King opened a copy of People magazine and stumbled over the Commodores word. Richie and co were also savvy enough to tailor their music to an adult crowd and once the girls were on side, their success was assured for years to come. If those are classics what does that make “Nightshift”? A genuine epic. That decade would define them and prove to be their most productive heyday with lead singer Lionel Richie providing much of the in-house material and masterminding a career that produced myriad hit albums and singles like the mighty ballads “Easy” and “Three Times A lady” while the tougher side of Commodore cool arrived via the hot and funky “Lady (You Bring Me Up)” and “Brick House”. Sophisticated, uniformly smart and oozing with melody and charm these Southern boys wowed audiences from the outset when Motown chiefs opening for the legendary Jackson 5 in 1972 spotted them. Consider their name, a reflection of their suave precision-tooled sound. Nicholas and William King give us the background behind the unexpected song that would become a soul music classic and one of the most recognized hits of the 80s.The Commodores are funk soul brothers with a huge amount of class. In this episode of “The Backstory,” Commodores members Walter Orange, J.D. "Nightshift," a musical tribute to Jackie Wilson, Marvin Gaye and other deceased soul greats, was a deserving smash, spending 4 weeks at the top of the charts and winning for the group a Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance. ![]() Nicholas in tow, recorded a Franne Golde / Dennis Lambert / Walter Orange composition that became one of their biggest hits ever. Happily, in 1985, those critics were silenced when the group, with new singer J.D. "The Backstory" is a new feature, where soul music greats tell us the story behind some of their biggest hitsįormed by a bunch of funk-loving friends at Alabama's Tuskegee Institute, The Commodores became one of the major crossover acts of the 70s and early 80s, with one monster hit after another.īut when lead singer Lionel Richie left the group after 1982’s In the Pocket album, The Commodores were given up for dead by much of the music world. ![]()
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