Thomas McClary Commodores Founder

An amazing, creative guitarist, a legend and the founder of the band “the Commodores”, Thomas McClary was born in 1949, in Florida. He started playing from a very young age with just a Ukulele and then started playing guitar later on.

He was the very first African-American, who attended the school of Florida way before the Brown v. Board of Education. He graduated from Florida and after the graduation and went for further studies in Tuskegee University located in Alabama. McClary did his Majors in business.

The Music Band

The incredible journey of the Commodores begins with the friendship of Lionel Richie and Thomas McClary. They met in the registration line of the Tuskegee University in 1967. McClary was a guitarist, and Lionel Richie was a sax player they became friends and thought about the formation of a band. In the beginning, it was called “The Mystics”. Their band had one more member “Williams King” who played the trumpet. Together Lionel Richie and Thomas McClary wrote some great hits which include “Hold on Sunshine,” “Get to be together,” “flying high” and much more.

New members in the band

Their rivals “the Jays” were another school band who had a keyboardist “Milan Williams”. He became a member of the Commodores when the Jays disbanded.

The Commodores

When all the members started working together, they started to think about a new name for the band. During a rehearsal of the band, Williams King came up with a name from the dictionary which was made official “The Commodores”.

For 15 years straight McClary played as a lead guitarist, lead singing and wrote songs as well. His solo “easy” is said to be one of the best solo guitar performance ever. Later on, other members were added in the band Jimmy Johnson, who played Sax, Michael Gilbert, who played bass and did lead vocals, and Andre Callahan, who played the drums.

After a while, the name of the band started spreading outside their town, and McClary collaborated with Lionel Richie, Dianna Ross, and many other famous artists to make new soundtracks.

After leaving the band, McClary signed a solo contract with the Motown Records and made his solo album, which was named as “Thomas McClary”. This album contained the most popular singles of McClary, which helped the album reach #57 on the Billboard R&B chart.

McClary went back to Florida and being a Christine became the music director of his church. He formed a gospel music record known as “A Revolution not a Revival”.

Currently Thomas McClary has started playing with his newly put together band known as the commodores featuring Thomas McClary.