Commodores – Three Times A Lady

It was Commodores’ first number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100, topping the chart for two weeks on August 12, 1978, and also reached number one on the soul chart for two weeks. It was the only Motown song to reach the top 10 on the US Billboard Hot 100 that year. The song also spent three weeks at number 1 on the Adult Contemporary chart.

As a student at Tuskegee University, Lionel Richie joined friends to form the band Commodores. The group primarily performed funk and party songs written by band members. Richie had grown up in a household full of varying kinds of music. His grandmother, Adelaide Foster, taught classical piano, and he was also inspired by the country music that was ubiquitous in Alabama.

At a party to celebrate his parents’ 37th wedding anniversary, Richie’s father toasted his mother, Alberta, saying “She’s a great lady, she’s a great mother, and she’s a great friend.” The toast inspired Richie to write a waltz, “Three Times a Lady”, which he dedicated to his wife, Brenda. As Richie later told Dick Clark, the toast caused him to realize, “I haven’t taken the time to tell my wife thank you. How many guys are in the same position?” Richie did not believe that a waltz would fit The Commodores’ musical style, so he wrote it imagining that it would be sung by Frank Sinatra.

As the band prepared to record the album Natural High, group members presented various songs that they had written. Richie played “Three Times a Lady” for producer James Carmichael, with the warning that he intended to pitch the song to Sinatra. Carmichael insisted that the song be added to The Commodores’ album.

The Commodores had six members at the time, and they all wrote separately and competed to get songs on their albums. The band knew this track was a hit when Lionel Richie brought it in, and they made it the centerpiece of the album.

This was the first #1 hit Lionel Richie wrote, but far from his last: He wrote songs that were #1 US hits in each of the next seven years, giving him the record for most consecutive #1s by a songwriter who was never a Beatle (Paul McCartney wrote songs that went to #1 1964-1971).

“Three Times a Lady” – Single by Commodores from the album Natural High
Released on June 9, 1978 (US)
Label Motown
Songwriter Lionel Richie
Producers James Anthony Carmichael & Commodores
Charted No.1 in US; No.1 in UK; No.1 in Canada; No.1 in Ireland;No.1 in Australia.