Let’s rewind to 1977. Disco was peaking, funk was strutting, and The Commodores—Motown’s southern gentlemen with dirty boots and tighter grooves—slipped a studio time bomb into their Live! album. “Too Hot to Trot” was the Trojan Horse: a blazing, finely engineered funk track posing as a live cut. A clever ruse, sure, but also a statement. They weren’t just balladeers crooning “Easy”—they were still fire-starters.
This wasn’t recorded at The Omni or the Atlanta Municipal Auditorium. No sweaty stage. No screaming crowd. This was cut in a studio with surgical precision and velvet swagger. While the rest of Commodores Live! captures the band’s raw stage power, “Too Hot to Trot” is pure studio alchemy.
The groove? Filthy. Ronald LaPread’s bassline bounces like it’s got hydraulic suspension. Thomas McClary chops at the guitar like it owes him money. Milan Williams lays down a clavinet line that zaps you straight to the roller disco, and Walter Orange is on vocal fire—playful, urgent, cocky.
Behind it all, maybe, just maybe, James Anthony Carmichael was in the booth—polishing horn charts, sculpting textures, and making sure it hit like it had been dipped in honey and set on fire. The Commodores had long taken control of their sound, but Carmichael’s fingerprints are never far from their finest work.
Oh, and let’s not forget: “Too Hot to Trot” soundtracked Thank God It’s Friday the following year—because of course it did. It’s pure ‘70s nightlife energy condensed into three and a half minutes of dancefloor foreplay.
Slipped into the closing credits of a live record, it whispered (with brass and bounce): We’re still the ones setting the room on fire.
Fast forward to 2025 down Paris way, where DoctorSoul has surgically enhanced this almost 50 year old gem with all the razzle dazzle we’ve come to expect from the good doctor. In lift here, a tuck there to an overall supple new version that remains faithful to the original, in soul and spirit, but makes it rather appealing to audiences of the modern dance floors, as they yearn for the simplicity, the feel-goodness and the swagger of the 70ies.
Links:
