Let me give you a piece of life advice, pardner. Be real careful when you tell people you’re a Commodores fan. Because before you know it people will slap the “Lionel Richie Fan” label on you, and that’s bad, real bad. Worse, they’ll assume you’re talking about the Commodores of “Easy” and “Three Times a Lady” and that’s fatal. Forget about that job promotion. Forget about your friends. They’re gone. Forget about your kids getting into that elite pre-school. They’re headed straight for drug addiction and rehab, and they’re only four. And forget about your significant other. Gone too. A person can only bear so much shame.
No, if you want to come out of the Commodores closet without going down the commode you have to be mighty specific, and tell everyone you know—in writing preferably—that you’re exclusively a fan of the funky R&B side of the Commodores that brought us such immortal tunes as “Machine Gun,” “Brick House,” and “I Feel Sanctified.” You can even throw in their homage to Marvin Gaye, “Nightshift.” It’s not funk but it passes muster. In short, “Slippery When Wet,” yes, “Just to Be Close to You” no, no, no, no, no. You don’t want your preschooler pawning your shit for narcotics, do you?
There’s a relatively clear line of demarcation between Commodores good and evil—it was the early Commodores that had the funk in them, although they were still good for the occasional dance classic later on—”Brick House” didn’t come along until 1978, when the band had pretty much gone over to the dark side of easy-listening treacle. But if you want to be sure you’re getting the right stuff you should sit your ears down and listen to their 1974 debut Machine Gun, It’s all funk and R&B all the time, and there isn’t a single sappy song on it. Even “There’s a Song in Your Heart”—an unpromising title if ever I’ve heard one—is funky brother.
The title track alone should give pause to anyone looking to dismiss the Commodores out of hand—it’s one of the premier funk-disco instrumentals of the era, a clavinet-powered dance track that boogies up a storm. The title says it all—Milan Williams’s rapid fire clavinet will fill your reservations about the Commodores with bullet holes. It’s a slick and sleek machine, this one, pure Motown swinging, and it includes a colossally super-funky segment so supernaturally cool the Beastie Boys stole it for “Hey Ladies.”
The title of “Young Girls Are My Weakness” brings both Humbert Humbert and R. Kelly to mind, but let’s give the Commodores the benefit of the doubt and assume they checked IDs, if only because the song is such a funky thang—the title gets chanted, the horn section (Richie on saxophone and William King on trumpet) is funkalicious, and the slow groove is enlivened by the positively lascivious vocals of both Richie and drummer William Orange, who always played the badass Mr. Hyde to Richie’s Dr. Jekyll.
“I Feel Sanctified”—which served as a prototype for Wild Cherry’s “Play That Funky Music”—opens with some Sly Stone-school a cappella vocals and promptly proceeds to get down. The rhythm section (and I give a special shout-out to bassist Ronald LaPread) hunkers down in the pocket and stays there, and the horns sound blessed indeed, but it’s the harmony vocals that do the real sanctifying. Listening to this one will convince you that the love of the right person can indeed put you right with God. The rumbling bass, dance floor horns, and harmony vocals of “The Bump” will have you doing the same—this one brings Kool and the Gang to mind, and that’s always a good thing. Love the way one guy starts up with “Gonna bump, bump, bump” only to have a second guy join in. You’ll join in too. It’s contagious.
“Rapid Fire” is the somewhat less funky brother of “Machine Gun”—it’ll make you move, but it doesn’t have quite the same pizzaz. Still, there’s all kinds of cool stuff going on—you get more clavinet whoops, loops, and lunatic paradiddles, some very cool chucka-chucka guitar, and some percussion (I think its percussion) that sounds like a marble circling the ceramic insides of a toilet bowl. There’s something you don’t hear every day. “The Assembly Line” is killer—a low-key, slow-growing dance track that comes complete with gospel organ, great sax by Richie, a truly beguiling melody, and some of the most soulful vocals recorded within the city limits of Motown, all in service of one very depressing message:
“From the moment you’re born
You’re on the line, line
The assembly line
Keeps on messin’ with your mind”
And the song just gets more and more intense until things stop, a piano comes in, and the Commodores deliver a plea for change:
“Life should be beautiful too
There’ll be no tomorrow, if we don’t change the world
Life, we gotta try to change
To save our future children
The ones we haven’t made”
Amen, my Commodore brothers!
And if you think the message of “The Assembly Line” is a bummer, it has nothing on the bottom line of the redundantly titled “The Zoo (The Human Zoo).” Over a helter-skelter, nursery rhyme rhythm that kinda straightens itself out into a simple groove the vocalists sound down in the mouth from the get go: “Zoo/The human zoo/We’re free/As a caged chimpanzee.” “And they call us a civilization?” they add before really going no hope on ya with the message that you can’t even trust your brother:
“Just give your friend a break
He’ll bite the hand that feeds him like a rattlesnake
And don’t shut your eyes and try to sleep
Otherwise, another dog will steal your meat”
Easy like Sunday morning, my ass—the early Commodores understood that nuthin’ is easy but dying maybe. And even then you’d better be okay with all your false friends showing up at your funeral, because if the Commodores are on the level you ain’t got no real ones.
“Gonna Blow Your Mind” is more high-intensity funk with great guitar, lots of cool keyboard swiggles, and a gut-bucket vocal performance by Orange. And the instrumental break—and Orange’s deep laugh—are truly mind-blowing. Hell, so long as you’ve got an ass and a heart you don’t need a mind to love this one—just lean back and let it lay its groove on ya.
“There’s a Song in My Heart” is a mid-tempo, deep dish, soul number—Richie gives it up big time, the horns are in your face, and the backing vocals are pure gospel inspiration. Straight from their heart to your heart—that’s the way this one works, and work it does. Closer “Superman” is funk simple and has Richie declaring himself “the baddest man around,” and his vocal performance is so commanding you almost believe him, “Hello” and “Lady” notwithstanding. Great swooping keyboards, more horn flash, and a bodacious break all make this one as undeniable as it is direct—this is no frills, big thrills funk, and makes for a great closer to a great album.
The Commodores of Machine Gun are a six-man party, and the party never stops. Invite them—or this album anyway—to your next shindig and I promise you people will be dancing on the ceiling. And the walls and the floor and the furniture. Even your dog will be doing the bump, and that ain’t no lie. Your cat may pretend to be unmoved, but don’t believe it. Inside, at least, that cat will be walkin’ the dog.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
