Almost the Commodes: the band named by a finger on a dictionary page

The Commodores nearly had a very different name. When the six members, mostly freshmen at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, needed one, William King flipped open a dictionary and ran his finger down the page. “We lucked out,” he later told People magazine, since they came close to becoming the Commodes. The line-up merged two campus groups, the Mystics and the Jays, and included Lionel Richie, Thomas McClary and Milan Williams.

They won the freshman talent contest, then played fraternity parties and a weekend job at the Black Forest Inn. Drummer Walter “Clyde” Orange became a singer when the first vocalist left to serve in Vietnam, and he wrote or co-wrote many of their hits. Bassist Ronald LaPread told the others he was the baddest player in Tuskegee, then spent days learning the instrument. Manager Benny Ashburn took them to his family's lodge on Martha's Vineyard, where they played parking lots and summer festivals.

Motown signed them in November 1972, after they had caught the public eye opening for the Jackson 5. Their 1974 instrumental “Machine Gun” became a fixture at American sporting events and in films, and the albums that followed leaned into funk. Then came a mellower side. In 1977 “Easy” reached No. 4 in the US, and “Brick House”, with Orange on lead, also landed in the top five. Ballads like “Three Times a Lady” and “Nightshift” sat beside dance songs like “Lady (You Bring Me Up)”.

Richie and Orange alternated as lead singers, which let the group move between tender and rowdy without a seam. “Welcome Home” belongs to that wide catalogue. The Commodores have won one Grammy from nine nominations, and have sold more than 70 million albums worldwide. Both the Alabama Music Hall of Fame and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame count them among their inductees.