Ronald LaPread, the bass guitarist who played on some of the most beloved funk and soul records of the 1970s and 1980s as a founding member of the Commodores, and who spent the last four decades of his life building a quiet second chapter in New Zealand, died in Auckland in May 2026. He was 75. The news was confirmed by his daughter, music producer Soraya LaPread, on social media.
Born September 4, 1950 in Alabama, LaPread joined the Commodores in 1970 and spent sixteen years as the rhythmic anchor of one of Motown’s most successful acts. He played on eleven of the group’s albums and his bass lines are woven into some of the most recognisable recordings of the era — “Brick House,” “Easy,” “Three Times a Lady,” “Sail On,” “Still,” and “Nightshift,” the Grammy-winning tribute to Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson that became the group’s final major hit. The Commodores have sold over 70 million albums worldwide, and LaPread’s fingerprints are on a significant portion of that catalogue.
The group’s story began, improbably enough, when a collection of freshmen at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama fell into playing together in 1968, won the college’s talent contest, and started working their way up from fraternity parties to opening for the Jackson 5. By the time they signed with Motown in 1972 they were already a tightly rehearsed, musically versatile unit, and LaPread’s bass playing was central to the groove that made them impossible to ignore. The peak years came in the late 1970s alongside Lionel Richie, when the Commodores could move between bone-shaking funk and tearjerking ballads with a fluency that very few acts have ever managed.
LaPread left the group in 1986, and the reason why is one of the more remarkable personal stories in the history of American soul music. He fell in love with a New Zealand woman named Farideh on a flight from Sydney to Auckland, moved to the other side of the world, and stayed for the rest of his life. He became a familiar and genuinely beloved figure in Aotearoa’s music community, describing New Zealand’s music scene in a 2025 interview as diverse, collaborative, and possessed of a relaxed culture that suited him completely. He attended the 2026 Aotearoa Music Awards just days before his death.
He never entirely lost touch with his past. In 2011 Lionel Richie invited LaPread and fellow former Commodore Thomas McClary on stage during a sold-out concert at Auckland’s Vector Arena, and he would continue to make appearances alongside the Commodores and Richie whenever they toured New Zealand in subsequent years. Richie once joked affectionately that LaPread was always “practising” for a reunion whenever the band came to town. He reunited with them and Richie at Spark Arena just last year.
He is survived by his wife Farideh, his two sons, and his daughter Soraya.
He played on records that are still on the radio fifty years after they were made, fell in love on an aeroplane, moved to New Zealand, and spent forty years making it home. That is a life lived with real intention.