Before opening for The Jackson 5, signing with Motown Records, recording a hit song, or winning a Grammy, The Commodores started with $2.50 and a chicken sandwich.
That’s what The Commodores were paid for their first gig in 1968.
“And the chicken sandwich was the best part of it, they could have kept the $2.50,” said Walter King, laughing as he reminisced about the band’s early days in tiny Tuskegee, Alabama.
A Valuable Education
The original members of The Commodores – King, Walter “Clyde” Orange, Lionel Richie, Ronald La Pread, Thomas McClary and Milan Williams – started playing together while attending Tuskegee Institute, rehearsing in a dark room with no windows on campus and playing shows at local dive bars with no doors.
“They would just take the doors off because they were always getting busted down,” King said. “You could almost put a clock to it. Between 12 and 12:30 a.m., somebody had enough to drink and was ready to fight.”
The guys in the band didn’t care. They were having a great time playing music and meeting girls, with no thoughts of making records or touring around the world.
One person saw the young musicians’ potential, however.
King remembers returning late from one of the band’s weekend road trips, missing a Monday morning class and an important exam. The teacher took a tough stance, refusing to let him take the test and giving him a zero … until the dean of students got involved.
“He stepped in and said, ‘Some day these young men are going to make us [Tuskegee Institute] famous.’ I will always remember him saying that and having faith in us. It stuck with me and made me try a little harder. For a young kid, I was only 17 or 18 at the time, to hear the dean put that kind of faith in us, it was amazing.”
As their popularity spread beyond Tuskegee, to Montgomery, Birmingham and other parts of the southeast, The Commodores grew increasingly serious about their music and careers.
They were ready for a bigger challenge.
MAKING IT IN NEW YORK
“We decided, ‘Look, we’re going to New York City and we’re going to take over the same way we did in all these other cities,’” King said.
So the band journeyed north and went straight to Small’s Paradise at 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in New York, where they confidently asked the club owner to give them a shot.
Not only did the owner reject them, they returned to the street to find they had been robbed on their first day in the city.
“We came back out, the van doors were wide open and someone had stolen all our equipment, all our clothes, everything,” King said. “I mean … they even stole the cookies and the soda from our road trip. Open drinks, open chips … it was all gone.”
The out-of-towners were told they could buy their equipment back if they waited around. Sure enough, about an hour later they spotted someone pushing Williams’ keyboard down the street.
After circling the block a few times, all but a bass amp and a couple suitcases were recovered.
And then a piece of good fortune: The band was called back to Small’s Paradise to fill in after a last-minute cancellation, where they ended up playing for two weeks.
The Commodores were on their way.
EASY AS 123
The Commodores’ first big break came with an opportunity to audition in New York for an undisclosed, high profile job in 1971. A couple weeks later, they found themselves opening for The Jackson 5.
“It was something you dream about but never really expect,” King said. “Sometimes the people were so loud you couldn’t even hear the music. Every guy on that stage for The Jackson 5 was just incredible.”
The Commodores continued to tour with The Jackson 5 for more than two years, gaining a higher profile and getting a crash-course on the music business.
“How to construct a show. How to put the right people in the right jobs. How to travel. How to do the box office. All these things, we learned by being with The Jackson 5,” King said. “It taught us how mean people could be in the industry, how lucrative the business could be and what to do with our money.”
THE HITS
When The Commodores had learned all they could from The Jackson 5, Motown was waiting with a recording deal.
The instrumental dance track “Machine Gun,” from The Commodores’ first album of the same name, broke out in Europe and Asia before it filtered back to the U.S., where it promptly climbed to No. 7 on the R&B charts.
King still vividly remembers first hearing the song on the radio while driving along Interstate 85 from Tuskegee to Montgomery.
“I started screaming, I pulled over to the side of the road and started dancing in the car … and these trucks were just whooshing by, shaking the car and I was in there jamming, having a great time!”
The Commodores continued with their brand of southern funk and hit No. 1 on R&B with “Slippery When Wet” from their second album, “Caught in the Act.”
And yet, even as The Commodores established themselves as a top R&B group, behind the scenes they were plotting ways to broaden their appeal.
The record-buying public hadn’t heard the evidence yet, but the Commodores wanted to embrace their diverse talent and interests. La Pread, the bass player, loved psychedelic funk. Orange, the drummer, followed big band music, and Williams loved blues and jazz. King and Richie were interested in pop.
They also wanted to find something that would reach across genres.
“We wanted to lock into something people would like regardless of what type of music they listened to. One thing stuck in our mind: Ballads,” said King. “Everybody likes a great ballad. So we started writing ballads.”
The band’s self-titled album in 1977 brought it all together, hitting with both the country-tinged ballad “Easy” and the funk anthem “Brick House.”
As slower songs like “Three Times a Lady,” “Sail On” and “Still” topped the charts in the late ’70s, The Commodores increasingly became known for the ballads.
Lionel Richie, meanwhile, displayed an uncommon touch for writing and singing them.
SHIFTING GROUND
In 1981, Richie recorded “Endless Love” with Diana Ross and it spent two months at the top of the R&B and pop charts. In 1982, Richie left The Commodores to pursue a solo career.
Richie had become the band’s most recognizable face. King said many in the music business thought they would quickly disappear.
“There were people who thought Richie sang ‘Brick House.’ (It was Orange.) There were people who thought he sang a lot of the other songs. He didn’t, but it doesn’t matter … it’s all about perception,” King said. “So we had people in the market saying ‘We don’t want to book you without your lead singer.’”
The next few years were difficult for the band. King said they never thought of quitting, that they always thought of The Commodores as more than any individual.
But they had to prove it.
So the Commodores recruited J.D. Nicholas to fill Richie’s slot and went back to work in the studio. And in 1985, they released a new album called “Nightshift,” including a title track written by Orange that paid tribute to legendary singers Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson, both of whom died in 1984.
The song “Nightshift” went to No. 1 on the R&B charts and won The Commodores their first and only Grammy.
“Everybody said, ‘Oh yeah, we knew you could do it,’” King said, chuckling. “But we understood that, we really did. When things have been ingrained in people’s minds, they want it to continue that way. But that’s not how life is.”
TODAY’S COMMODORES
The Commodores are still touring worldwide with King, Orange, Nicholas and five musicians. They recently played in England, China and South Africa.
The band’s appearance at the 25th annual Huntsville Classic Dinner & Concert on May 9 will be part of a swing through the south, then they’ll hit the West Coast.
“Let me tell you, man, we are explosive on stage,” King said. “Dancing, singing, flipping, hopping … and we try to play those songs the way people hear them on the radio. We don’t try to get away from that, because that’s what people come to hear. That’s what they know. We like for everyone to sing along and enjoy themselves. We have a great time on stage.”
King insists he still gets a thrill from travelling and playing for a live audience, all these years after being paid with chicken sandwiches and hearing himself on the radio for the first time alongside Interstate 85 between Tuskegee and Montgomery.
For him, the best part is watching the fans’ reactions to their favorite Commodores songs.
“You can see people reminiscing as the music is playing,” he said. “It’s taking them back to a time when something wonderful happened in their lives.”
The Huntsville Classic Concert: A Concert with a Cause
The Commodores concert is one part of a larger event, the Huntsville Classic, organized by Huntsville Hospital Foundation. This annual event, now in its 25th year, raises money to purchase needed equipment for Huntsville Hospital. This year proceeds will benefit Huntsville Hospital’s Cardiovascular program.
If you want to attend the Classic Concert, you have a couple ticket options:
- Dinner and Concert: Includes cocktail hour, seated dinner on the floor of the VBC area, and the concert. Call the Foundation at (256) 265-8077 or e-mail Courtney McCool for tickets
- YP Happy Hour: Private pre-party, early entry to concert, and VIP seating. Cost: $40. Purchase tickets.
- Concert only: Tickets are $20. Purchase tickets
Event Information: Huntsville Classic Concert
Date: Thursday, May 9th
Time: Concert at 8:30 p.m.
Location: Von Braun Center Propst Arena
Tickets: Available online through Ticketmaster
Guest blogger for We Are Huntsville. Are you interested in writing a post for our site? Email katelyn@wearehuntsville.com.