Antone Lee “Chubby” Tavares passed away on Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025. He was 80.
(December 3, 2025) – In early 1980, while I was creating my own personal weekly music charts as a 13-year-old kid with apparently nothing better to do, a sophisticated soul tune — one far too mature for my young ears — caught my full attention. The vinyl 45 had been purchased by my mother, and therefore, by default, it found its way into my personal rotation.
A steady diet of that single — Tavares’ “Bad Times” on Capitol Records — eventually propelled it to No. 1 on my weekly chart. What I didn’t know then, without access to Billboard magazine at that age, was that the song was simultaneously climbing their Hot Soul Singles and Hot 100 charts, ultimately reaching No. 10 and No. 47, respectively.
“Bad Times” quickly became my favorite Tavares track — and for a few weeks, my favorite song, period. Its woeful refrain about hard luck and aging prematurely was aimed squarely at an audience three times my age, yet it struck a chord with my old-soul sensibilities. And it was a sharp turn from the disco-leaning identity that had defined the band through the mid- to late-’70s with hits like “Don’t Take Away the Music,” “Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel,” “Whodunit,” and their signature smash, “It Only Takes a Minute.”
In fact, their penultimate Hot 100 hit — the Bee Gees-penned “More Than a Woman” — had earned them their only Grammy via its placement on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. But by the end of 1979, with the disco backlash in full force, the five brothers hadn’t landed a major hit in nearly two years.
A Minor Hit That Bucked the Odds
Released in late 1979, “Bad Times” was a simmering mid-tempo groove — jazz-inflected, slow rhythm-driven, and lyrically heavy — that should have struggled in the post-disco climate. Its opening minute alone is cinematic: piano and drums, followed by an ominous six-note brass line that felt more suited for a Hardy Boys mystery movie than a social-soul commentary record. Keyboards, strings, and saxophone layer in before the first lyric even arrives.
And those lyrics made the record’s purpose clear:
“Pay every price, can’t keep that dollar bill…
It ain’t much desire when you done lost the will.”
Or this sharp-edged line from the final verse:
“Don’t pay enough to stand in line and wait;
Stand here too long before it gets far too late.
That eight-to-five don’t burn no candlelight.
Ain’t that a bitch — you got to get old to die.”
If Chic’s “Good Times,” released just months earlier, served as the symbolic end to disco’s pop reign, Tavares’ “Bad Times” felt like the sobering morning after — the nail in the era’s coffin. The song could have easily described both Tavares’ career and the plight of disco at the time of its release. Yet disco wasn’t dead, especially on MY personal chart; “Bad Times” was surrounded by past and future No. 1 disco-leaning jams like Sister Sledge’s “Got to Love Somebody,” Vaughn Mason’s “Bounce, Rock, Skate, Roll,” Brothers Johnson’s “Stomp,” and Narada Michael Walden’s “I Shoulda Loved Ya.” Tavares simply recognized that their own career needed a reinvention. And this song — a soulful, grown-folk pivot — was just what the doctor ordered, at least for a temporary fix. The tune became the group’s first Hot 100 entry in two years and its first top ten soul hit in over a year.
Three Brothers, Three Leads
Perhaps the most compelling aspect of “Bad Times” is that its lead vocals were shared by three Tavares brothers — Ralph, Pooch, and Chubby — alternating verses, weaving three distinct timbres into a single story about life’s burdens and how they prematurely age us. It remains one of the few Tavares hits where all three took the lead, and it may be the finest showcase of their vocal chemistry.
Penned by Gerald McMahon, the track’s musical complexity not only made it a perfect disco antidote, it also echoed the looming recession, gas shortages, and economic anxiety of 1979. But for me — a kid blissfully unaware of adult pressures — it simply sounded wise, weary, and wonderful. And catchy.
If today’s Adult R&B format had an early ancestor, “Bad Times” would be its poster child.
Sadly, Chubby — born Antone Lee Tavares — passed away on Saturday, November 29, at age 80. He now joins the two brothers who preceded him in death: Ralph (d. 2021, age 78) and Pooch (d. 2024, age 80), ironically the three who’d shared the mic on “Bad Times,” the three who’d given the song its unique soul.
The surviving Tavares brothers — Butch, 78, and Tiny, 76 — continue to carry the family legacy forward.
May Chubby, Ralph, and Pooch all rest in soulful peace.
DJRob
DJRob (he/him) is a freelance music blogger from the East Coast who covers R&B, hip-hop, disco, pop, rock and country genres – plus lots of music news and current stuff! You can follow him on Bluesky at @djrobblog.bsky.social, X (formerly Twitter) at @djrobblog, on Facebook or on Meta’s Threads.
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