Multi-Part Harmonies And Seductive Grooves – The Magic Of The Temptations

When it comes to vocal groups, I can’t think of a more compelling example than The Temptations. Their perfect multi-part harmonies have impressed me from the very first moment I heard them sometime during my early teenage years. I was reminded of The Temptations’ mighty singing while listening to a Christmas playlist yesterday that includes their beautiful rendition of Silent Night. Since I’m a huge fan of great harmony vocals, I decided a tribute post was an order.

The story of The Temptations began in Detroit in 1960 when members of two other vocal bands formed a group called The Elgins: Otis Williams, Elbridge “Al” Bryant and Melvin Franklin of Otis Williams & the Distants, and Eddie Kendricks and Paul Williams who came from a group called The Primes. Following an audition in March 1961, an impressed Berry Gordy signed the group to Motown imprint Miracle Records. However, there was one problem. The name Elgins was already taken by another band. According to Wikipedia, Miracle Records employee Billy Mitchell, songwriter Mickey Stevenson, Otis Williams and Paul Williams came up with the idea to call the group The Temptations.

In April 1961, the group released their debut single Oh, Mother of Mine. Co-written by Otis Williams and Mickey Stevenson, who also produced the track, the tune was not successful. Neither were the following seven singles The Temptations released. In January 1964, Al Bryant was replaced by David Ruffin, marking the start of “The Classic Five” era that would turn the group into superstars. In the meantime, Smokey Robinson had become their producer, and it was one of his tunes that became the group’s first no. 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the Hot R&B Singles charts: My Girl, released in December 1964. Every time I hear that song, I got sunshine, no matter how cloudy my day may be. By the way, that cool bass intro is played by the amazing James Jamerson. Feel free to snip and groove along!

While it would take The Temptations another four and a half years before scoring their second double no. 1 on the Hot 100 and Hot R&B Singles charts, they released plenty of other hits in the meantime, many of which topped the Hot R&B Singles. Here’s one of my favorites: Get Ready, another tune written and produced by Smokey Robinson. I was going to feature an audio clip of the track but couldn’t resist using the below footage instead, which was captured during a TV appearance in 1966. The song appeared in February that year. Even though none of the singing and music are live, just watching the dance choreography of these guys and the female backing dancers is priceless!

And then the era of The Classic Five came to an end after success and fame apparently had gotten to David Ruffin’s head. His behavior led to friction with the other members of the group, and The Temptations ended up firing him on June 27, 1968. The very next day, he was replaced by Dennis Edwards, a former member of The Contours. The new line-up became what some called the group’s “second classic line-up.” But more changes were in store.

Norman Whitfield took over as producer, and The Temptations started adopting a more edgy sound, influenced by contemporaries like Sly & The Family Stone and Funkadelic. The group’s four-year psychedelic soul period kicked off with their ninth studio album Cloud Nine from February 1969. The record climbed to no. 4 on the Billboard 200 and brought the group their first Grammy Award in the category Best Rhythm & Blues Group Performance, Vocal or Instrumental. Here’s Run Away Child, Running Wild, a co-write by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong. A shorter version of the tune was also released separately as a single and became another no. 1 on the Hot R&B Singles chart. Here’s the full album version. That’s one hell of a hot funky tune!

Even though The Temptations had come a long way from their oftentimes romantic songs that marked their early years, the group did not entirely abandon sweet ballads. Here’s one of the most beautiful in my opinion, released in January 1971: Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me). Evidently, the public liked it as well. The song became the group’s third and last to top both the Hot 100 and Hot R&B Singles charts. Interestingly, it was written by the same guys who penned Runaway Child, Running Wild. Perhaps appropriately, the track also appeared on an album called Sky’s The Limit. Damn, these guys could harmonize – it’s pure perfection and actually no imagination!

Writing about The Temptations’ psychedelic soul era wouldn’t be complete without including another epic tune: Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone, another Whitfield-Barrett gem. Initially, it was recorded and released as a single in May 1972 by another Motown act called The Undisputed Truth – something I had not known until I did some research for this post. While their original is pretty cool, I still prefer The Temptations’ version. Interestingly, it hit no. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 but “only” peaked at no. 5 on the Hot R&B Singles chart. Here it is in its full 12-minute glory!

By the time of the release of 1990 in December 1973, The Temptations had become tired of psychedelic soul and wanted to move back to their more upbeat style and lyrics of the ’60s. The album turned out to be the final record produced by Whitfield. January 1975 saw the release of the group’s next studio album A Song For You. Wikipedia lists a hodge-podge of producers, including Berry Gordy, Jeffrey Bowen, James Anthony Carmichael, Suzy Wendy Ikeda, Clayton Ivey and Terry Woodford. The record was the group’s last to top the Billboard Hot R&B LPs chart. It also featured their two last no. 1 singles on the Hot R&B Singles chart, Happy People and Shakey Ground. Here’s the latter, a nice groovy tune co-written by Jeffrey Bowen, Alphonso Boyd and Funkadelic guitarist Eddie Hazel, who also played lead guitar on the track.

Following A Song For You, success dried up. After the release of The Temptations Do The Temptations in August 1976, the group left Motown and signed with Atlantic Records. That didn’t change their trajectory, and after two albums, they returned to Motown in 1980. Two years later, they reunited with co-founder Eddie Kendricks and “Classic Five” era member David Ruffin for a tour, during which they recorded a studio album appropriately titled Reunion. Released in April 1982, the record marked a comeback of sorts, peaking at no. 2 on the Hot R&B LPs and a respectable no. 37 on the Billboard 200. Here’s opener Standing On The Top, a funk tune written and produced by Rick James, who also contributed vocals and clavinet.

While success has largely eluded them since Reunion, The Temptations have released 17 additional studio albums. The most recent, All The Time, appeared in 2018. Here’s Stay With Me, a cover of the beautiful pop soul tune by English songwriter and vocalist Sam Smith. In fact, when I heard this version for the first time, I thought it was Smith together with The Temptations, but apparently it’s not. The tune is credited to Smith, James Napier and William Phillips, as well as Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne, following a legal settlement. After the song’s release, Petty’s published had noticed a similarity to I Won’t Back Down and reached out to Smith’s team.

Altogether, The Temptations have had an impressive 14 chart-toppers on the Hot R&B LPs, including eight in a row between March 1965 and February 1969 – I suspect this must be a record. The group also scored 14 no. 1 hits on the Hot R&B Singles chart and topped the Hot 100 chart four times. In 1989, The Temptations (Dennis Edwards, Melvin Franklin, Eddie Kendricks, David Ruffin, Otis Williams and Paul Williams) were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Rolling Stone has ranked them at no. 68 on their list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

The Temptations are active to this day, with Otis Williams remaining as the only original founding member. The other current line-up includes Ron Tyson (since 1983), Terry Weeks (since 1997) and Willie Green (since 2016). Next year, the group will embark on a tour through the U.S., U.K. and Germany to celebrate their 60th anniversary. This includes two dates in May in my area. My wife and I saw The Temptations once in the early 2000s at The Apollo in New York City, together with The Four Tops. We both remember it as a great show, so we’re thinking to catch them again. The current tour schedule is here.

Sources: Wikipedia; Temptations website; YouTube

On This Day In Rock & Roll History: November 17

Every time I do another installment of this ongoing series, I’m amazed how many dates I still have left to cover. November 17 turned out to be one of them.

In case you see one of these posts for the first time, the idea is to highlight things that happened on a specific date throughout rock history. By no means are these posts meant to be a comprehensive list of events. Instead, I select stuff I find interesting, mainly focusing on the ’60s and ’70s, my two favorite music decades. With that little disclaimer being out of the way, let’s get to November 17!

1964: The Beatles recorded a session for the BBC radio program Top Gear, which at the time was still a new show that only had debuted four months earlier. In addition to an interview with host Brian Matthew, who by the way worked for the BBC for a whopping 63 years from 1954 until 2017, The Beatles recorded six songs: I’m A Loser, Honey Don’t, She’s A Woman, Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby, I’ll Follow The Sun and I Feel Fine. The program first aired on November 24, 1964. Except for I’ll Follow The Sun, all recordings from the show were included on the compilation album Live At The BBC released in November 1994. Here’s I Feel Fine, a song with a great guitar riff I’ve always dug. Credited to John Lennon and Paul McCartney, the tune first appeared as the A-side of the band’s eighth single in the UK. The track hit no. 1 there, as well as in the U.S. and many other countries.

1966: The Beach Boys topped the UK Singles Chart with Good Vibrations, the first of only two no. 1 singles they scored in that country; the second one in 1968 was appropriately called Do It Again. Unlike these days where Britain makes lots of waves, I suppose back then the waters were calm and folks there didn’t care much about surfing and cruising in cars. While I enjoy The Beach Boys’ surfing and car songs, although they all sound very similar, it was always their fantastic harmony vocals that attracted me the most. If I could only choose one song, it would be Good Vibrations. Composed by Brian Williams with lyrics by Mike Love, the tune was recorded in Los Angeles at various studios over a two-month period. Songfacts notes the making of the complex track included 17 recording sessions and many top studio musicians, resulting in an approximate cost of $50,000, making it the most expensive pop song ever recorded when it came out. Widely recognized as one of the most important compositions and recordings of its time, Good Vibrations was ranked no. 6 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2011 and included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll.

1971: Faces, an excellent British band that was always a bit undervalued compared to contemporaries like The Who and The Rolling Stones, released their third studio album A Nod’s As Good As a Wink… to a Blind Horse. Faces’ second record that year and their second to last album became their best-selling release worldwide, hitting no. 2 in the UK and no. 6 in the U.S. on the Billboard 200. The record also featured the band’s highest-charting single in the U.S.: The excellent Stay With Me, which reached no. 17 on the Billboard Hot 100. The tune was co-written by Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood. I said it before and I’ll say it again: Stewart once was a smoking hot rocker!

1973: Quadrophenia, the sixth studio album by The Who, entered the British charts at no. 2, a position it held for another week. It was the band’s second rock opera after Tommy from May 1969. Among the record’s distinct features are Pete Townshend’s use of multi-track synthesizers and sound effects, as well as John Entwistle’s layered horn parts. While Quadrophenia was received positively in the UK and the U.S., the supporting tour was impactd by technical issues with taped backing tracks. These tapes provided the album’s instrumentation The Who could not replicate on stage. Perhaps foolishly, Roger Daltrey insisted that the band stick to their four-piece line-up and not add any supporting backing musicians. After various setbacks, the tour ended early in February 1974 . It would take 22 years before Quadrophenia was revived as a live show in London’s Hyde Park in June 1996. Instead of The Who, the performance was credited to Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey and John Entwistle. The show also featured actors and other musicians who among others included David Gilmour and Zak Starkey, marking the beginning of the drummer’s ongoing association with The Who. Here’s the album’s powerful closer Love, Reign O’ver Me. I still get goose bumps each time I listen to Daltrey’s crazy vocals on that tune.

1980: The last item in this list of events shall belong to John Lennon, who on that day released Double Fantasy, the final album during his lifetime. The record marked Lennon’s return to music after a five-year break during which he had mostly focused on family life. While I’m admittedly not a fan of Yoko Ono’s music, Lennon’s songs still make this record a great listening experience. After a less than stellar initial reception, Double Fantasy became a huge international success in the wake of Lennon’s murder in New York City three weeks after the album had come out. It’s kind of idiotic how people oftentimes suddenly “discover” musicians after their death, especially if it involved tragedy. Here’s one of my favorite tunes from the record: Watching The Wheels.

Sources: Wikipedia; The Beatles Bible; This Day in Music; This Day In Rock; Songfacts; YouTube