Two Eras of 1970s R&B Mourn as The Commodores’ Ronald LaPread and The Sylvers’ Foster Sylvers Die

Foster Sylvers, left, and Ronald LaPread are shown in a composite illustration honoring two figures from 1970s R&B and soul. Sylvers, a child star with the Sylvers, died at 64, and LaPread, a founding member and former bassist for the Commodores, died at 75. 

Two R&B bloodlines that helped define the sound of the 1970s were being mourned this weekend, as the deaths of Ronald LaPread of the Commodores and Foster Sylvers of the Sylvers were reported by multiple outlets.

LaPread, a founding member and former bassist for the Commodores, died at 75 after helping anchor one of Motown’s most durable funk and soul machines. Foster Sylvers, the gifted child star whose voice and musicianship helped carry the Sylvers from family act to disco-era hitmakers, died at 64 after a cancer battle.

The losses hit different corners of the same musical universe — one rooted in Tuskegee, Alabama, and Motown’s polished rise through the 1970s; the other in the bright, youthful harmonies of a Los Angeles family group that gave R&B and pop one of the era’s most infectious records.

Soraya LaPread announces the death of her father, Ronald LaPread, a founding member and former bassist for the Commodores, in an Instagram Story. LaPread, whose bass helped anchor the group’s classic funk and soul sound, died at 75. (Credit: Soraya LaPread/Instagram)

LaPread’s daughter, music producer Soraya LaPread, announced his death on social media Saturday. TMZ reported that the New Zealand Herald said LaPread died after a sudden medical event in Auckland, New Zealand, where he had lived for decades.

LaPread was part of the original Commodores lineup with Lionel Richie, Walter “Clyde” Orange, William “WAK” King, Milan Williams and Thomas McClary. The group formed in 1968 at Tuskegee Institute, now Tuskegee University, and became one of Motown’s defining acts of the 1970s and early 1980s, moving easily between hard funk, lush ballads and crossover soul.

As the group’s bassist, LaPread helped give shape to records that became part of the American songbook, including “Brick House,” “Easy” and “Three Times a Lady.” His role was not always the one that drew the spotlight, but it was central to the Commodores’ identity: the pocket, the weight, the movement underneath the melodies that made the band both radio-ready and deeply funky.

The Recording Academy lists the Commodores with one Grammy win and nine nominations. Their lone Grammy win came for “Nightshift,” the 1985 tribute to Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson that earned best R&B performance by a duo or group with vocal. By then, the group had already lived through Richie’s departure and the turbulence that followed, but the record showed how much musical force remained in the Commodores name.

LaPread’s death also came days after the Commodores withdrew from the Freedom 250 concert series tied to the Great American State Fair in Washington, D.C., amid backlash over the event’s political connections. That controversy may have placed the group back in the headlines, but LaPread’s legacy rests much deeper — in the grooves that made the Commodores a bridge between Southern musicianship, Motown discipline and the mass appeal of late-20th-century Black popular music.

Hours after LaPread’s death was reported, TMZ reported that Foster Sylvers had died in hospice care. Reports differed on the specific cancer diagnosis, but Leon Sylvers III confirmed to multiple outlets that his brother died after a cancer battle.

Foster Sylvers entered the music world young, and with rare command. His 1973 solo single “Misdemeanor,” written by Leon, became a breakout R&B hit and later took on a second life through hip-hop sampling, including its use on the D.O.C.’s “It’s Funky Enough.” That afterlife matters: Foster’s work did not simply sit in the ’70s. It echoed forward into the sample-based language that helped build hip-hop’s golden age.

With the Sylvers, Foster became part of one of the decade’s most recognizable family groups, a sibling act often remembered alongside the broader wave of Black family bands that included the Jackson 5 and the Five Stairsteps. The Sylvers’ biggest pop moment came with “Boogie Fever,” which reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1976. The record was bright, polished and impossible to shake, but beneath its pop sheen was the architecture of a serious family band — harmonies, rhythm, choreography and production moving as one.

The Sylvers also scored with records such as “Fool’s Paradise” and “Hot Line,” while Foster built a reputation beyond the family name as a bassist, singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist. He worked in the same lineage as his brother Leon, whose production and songwriting later helped shape the sound of SOLAR Records and acts including Shalamar and Dynasty.

The deaths of LaPread and Foster Sylvers are not connected beyond timing, but together they mark the passing of two musicians whose work lived inside the machinery of classic Black music rather than outside it. LaPread helped drive a band that could make funk muscular and ballads feel monumental. Foster Sylvers helped bring youthful electricity to a family sound that crossed from soul into disco and later found its fingerprints in hip-hop.

They came from different bands, different regions and different roles. But both belonged to a generation of musicians who built songs strong enough to outlive the charts, the trends and even the eras that first made them famous.