LIONEL RICHIE & THE COMMODORES: TOGETHER ALONE (NATURALLY)
With a fiercely funkified beat, sinister guitar licks and an ebullient YAOWWWW!, the Commodores have remained one of the top names in black popular music. Guitarist Thomas McClary was a freshman at Alabama's Tuskegee Institute when he formed a party band called the Mystics.
LIONEL RICHIE & THE COMMODORES: TOGETHER ALONE (NATURALLY)
DREW WHEELER
With a fiercely funkified beat, sinister guitar licks and an ebullient YAOWWWW!, the Commodores have remained one of the top names in black popular music.
Guitarist Thomas McClary was a freshman at Alabama's Tuskegee Institute when he formed a party band called the Mystics. Their change-of-name to the Commodores (if it isn't a product of some press agent's imagination) came when the word "commodore" was pulled at random from a dictionary. Joining McClary were drummer Walter "Clyde" Orange, pianist Milan Williams, bassist Ronald La Pread, pianist William King and vocalist Lionel Richie. As an extremely young band with sharp tunes and slick choreography, the Commodores would come to owe their surge in popularity to their first and longtime manager, the late Benjamin Ashburn.
In the year 1972, the Commodores were awarded a contract to Motown Records and filled the warm-up spot for the Jackson Five on three world tours. As a headlining band, the Commodores toured internationally, drawing record audiences in the Phillipines, among other far-flung places. In 1978, they even took part in the ill-fated movie "Thank God It's Friday" with Donna Summer.