{"id":706145,"date":"2026-05-31T17:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T17:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/706145\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T17:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T17:14:10","slug":"commodores-co-founder-and-former-bassist-ronald-lapread-dead-at-75","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/706145\/","title":{"rendered":"Commodores Co-Founder and Former Bassist Ronald LaPread Dead at 75"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ronald LaPread
\n Commodores Co-Founder Dead at 75
\n …After Group Exits Freedom 250 Celebration<\/p>\n

\n Published
\n May 31, 2026
\n 7:57 AM PDT\n <\/p>\n

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Ronald LaPread — one of the founding members and bassist for soul band the Commodores — has died.<\/p>\n

His daughter, music producer Soraya LaPread, shared the sad news on social media Saturday. She did not divulge any details of his passing, but NZ Herald<\/a> reported he died following a “sudden medical event” in Auckland. Ronald had been living in New Zealand since the 1980s.<\/p>\n

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TMZ has reached out so Soraya and the Commodores for comment … so far, no word back.<\/p>\n

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Ronald founded the Commodores alongside Lionel Richie<\/a>, Walter “Clyde” Orange, William “WAK” King, Milan Williams, and Thomas McClary in 1968 while they were students at Tuskegee Institute. They originally called themselves The Mystics.<\/p>\n

The musician, originally from Alabama, played on 11 of the group’s albums and contributed to hits such as “Brick House,” “Three Times a Lady,” and “Easy.” Ronald joined the group for some concerts in New Zealand over the years, and most recently played with them on stage during their tour in 2025.<\/p>\n

The Commodores were one of Motown’s most successful acts of the 1970s and 1980s and sold more than 70 Million albums across the globe. But, they experienced a great deal of turbulence after Lionel departed from the group in the early ’80s.<\/p>\n

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This week, they announced they were one of several acts to pull out<\/a> of Freedom 250’s Great American State Fair to celebrate America’s 250th birthday over the event’s political ties.<\/p>\n

Ronald was 75.<\/p>\n

RIP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ronald LaPread Commodores Co-Founder Dead at 75 …After Group Exits Freedom 250 Celebration Published May 31, 2026 7:57…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":706146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,75],"class_list":["post-706145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=706145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/706146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}