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The Temptations
American rhythm and blues group
The Temptations are an American vocal group formed in Detroit, Michigan, in 1961 as the Elgins, known for their string of successful singles and albums with Motown from the 1960s to the mid-1970s. The group's work with producer Norman Whitfield, beginning with the Top 10 hit single "Cloud Nine" in October 1968, pioneered psychedelic soul, and was significant in the evolution of R&B and soul music.
The group members were known for their choreography, distinct harmonies, and dress style. Having sold tens of millions of albums, the Temptations are among the most successful groups in popular music.
members: Otis Williams, Dennis Edwards, Eddie Kendricks, David Ruffin, Richard Street, Ron Tyson, Terry Weeks
formed in: Detroit
labels: Capitol Records, Motown, Universal Music Group, Warwick, Miracle, Gordy, United Artists Records, Tamla Motown
genres: doo-wop, funk, soul, rhythm and blues, rock music, rock and roll
awards: Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, Grammy Award for Best R&B Instrumental Performance, Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals, Grammy Award for Best R&B Instrumental Performance, American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B Band/Duo/Group, American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B Album, NAACP Image Award – Hall of Fame Award, Grammy Hall of Fame
Eddie Kendricks and Paul Williams started singing together in church as children in Birmingham, Alabama. By their teenage years, they formed a doo-wop quartet in 1955 with Kell Osborne and Wiley Waller, naming themselves the Cavaliers.
Members of the Distants were acquainted with the Primes, as both groups participated in the same talent shows and performed at the same public venues. Friendly rivals, the Primes were considered to be the more polished and vocally stronger group of the two. However, this last group disbanded in 1960 after Kell Osborne moved to California. Eddie Kendricks and Paul Williams returned to Alabama following the band's dissolution. While visiting relatives in Detroit, Kendricks called Otis Williams, who desperately needed two more members for an audition for Gordy's label and offered Kendricks a lead singer place in this new group, which would also include fellow former Distants members Franklin and Bryant. Kendricks agreed on the condition he...
The Temptations has inspired many musical groups and artists like the Jackson 5, the Stylistics, the Dramatics, Blue Magic, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, New Edition, Rod Stewart, Bob Dylan, Hall & Oates and many more.
American vocal group known for their success with Motown Records during the 1960s and 1970s.
With their distinct harmonies, choreography, & flashy wardrobe, the group was highly influential in the evolution R&B and soul music.
Formed in 1960 in Detroit, Michigan under the name The Elgins (not to be confused with the other Motown act with the same name), they changed their name to The Temptations before being signed at Motown in 1962.
The first Motown recording act to win a Grammy Award, over the course of their career, they have released four Billboard Hot 100 #one singles and fourteen R&B #one singles, making them one of the most successful groups in music history.
The Temptations Family Tree 1961 - 2022 (current members in bold)
Otis Williams (1960 – present)
Elbridge "Al" Bryant (1960 – 1963) (deceased)
Melvin Franklin (1960 – 1994) (deceased)
Eddie Kendricks (1960 – 1971, 1982 reunion) (deceased)
Paul Williams (1960 – 1971) (deceased)
David Ruffin (1964 – 1968 repl. Elbridge Bryant, 1982 reunion) (deceased)
Dennis Edwards (1968 –1977 repl. David Ruffin, 1980 – 1984 repl. Louis Price, 1987 - 1989 repl. Ali-Ollie Woodson) (deceased)
Ricky Owens (1971 repl. E
Also known as: (Original Lead Singers Of) The Temptations, Emptation, I Temptations, Los Temptations, Masterpiece Temptations
From Discogs (free to use). Their entry
Liner notes
The Temptations, the records, oldest first
Meet the Temptations
1964 album
wanted
The Temptations Sing Smokey
1965 album
wanted
Temptin’ Temptations
1965 album
Gettin’ Ready
1966 album
wanted
With a Lot o’ Soul
1967 album
In a Mellow Mood
1967 album
Diana Ross & The Supremes Join The Temptations
1968 album
Wish It Would Rain
1968 album
Together
1969 album
Puzzle People
1969 album
Cloud Nine
1969 album
Psychedelic Shack
1970 album
The Temptations’ Christmas Card
1970 album
Sky’s the Limit
1971 album
All Directions
1972 album
Solid Rock
1972 album
1990
1973 album
Masterpiece
1973 album
House Party
1975 album
A Song for You
1975 album
Wings of Love
1976 album
The Temptations Do the Temptations
1976 album
Hear to Tempt You
1977 album
Bare Back
1978 album
Records from MusicBrainz; covers from the Cover Art Archive.
"My Girl" is a song recorded by American vocal group the Temptations for the Gordy (Motown) record label in 1964. Written and produced by the Miracles members Smokey Robinson and Ronald White, it became the Temptations' first US number-one single, and is considered their signature song.
Robinson's inspiration for writing "My Girl" was his wife, Miracles member Claudette Rogers Robinson. The song was included on the Temptations 1965 album The Temptations Sing Smokey.
Recording and release
The recorded version of "My Girl" was the first Temptations single to feature David Ruffin on lead vocals. Previously, Eddie Kendricks and Paul Williams had performed most of the group's lead vocals, and Ruffin had joined the group as a replacement for former Temptation Elbridge Bryant. While on tour as part of the Motortown Revue, a collective tour for most of the Motown roster, Smokey Robinson caught the Temptations' part of the show. For their set, the group had included a medley of soul standards, one of which, the Drifters' "Under the Boardwalk", was a solo spot for Ruffin. Impressed, Robinson decided to produce a single with Ruffin singing lead. Robinson saw Ruffin as a "sleeping giant" in the group with a unique voice that was...
Reception
"My Girl" climbed to the top of the US pop charts on March 6, 1965, after its Christmas time 1964 release, making it the Temptations' first number-one hit. The single was also the first number-one hit on the reinstated Billboard R&B Singles chart, which had gone on a 15-month hiatus from 1963 to 1965. The single also gave the Gordy label its first number one on the Hot 100.
Cover versions
In 1965, American singer and songwriter Otis Redding recorded the song for his album Otis Blue. Released as a single, it was the first version to be successful in the United Kingdom, reaching No.11 in the UK Singles Chart.
"Ain't Too Proud to Beg" is a 1966 song and hit single by the Temptations for Motown Records' Gordy label, written by Norman Whitfield and Edward Holland Jr. and produced by Whitfield. It peaked at number 13 on the Billboard Pop Chart, and was a number-one hit on the Billboard R&B charts for eight non-consecutive weeks.
The song's success, in the wake of the relative underperformance of the previous Temptations' single, "Get Ready", resulted in Norman Whitfield replacing Smokey Robinson, producer of "Get Ready", as the Temptations' main producer. In 2004, the song finished number 94 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs poll thanks to its inclusion in The Big Chill soundtrack.
Reception
Cash Box described the song as a "plaintive, slow-shufflin’ blues-soaked ode about a love-sick fella who'll go to any lengths to keep his gal at his side."
Production
On Friday mornings at Motown's Hitsville USA offices, the creative team held Quality Control meetings, at which potential single releases were voted for or against release. To Whitfield's disappointment, "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" failed twice to make it through Motown's Friday morning Quality Control meetings, with Berry Gordy commenting that the song was good, but "needed more story". For the third recorded version of "Ain't Too Proud", Whitfield had David Ruffin's lead vocal arranged just above his actual vocal range. As a result, the singer was forced to strain through numerous takes in order to get out all of the song's high notes. By the end of the "Ain't Too Proud" recording session, recalls Temptation Otis Williams, Ruffin was...
"Get Ready" is a Motown song written by Smokey Robinson, which resulted in two hit records for the label: a U.S. No. 29 version by the Temptations in 1966, and a U.S.
No. 4 version by Rare Earth in 1970. It is significant for being the last song Robinson wrote and produced for the Temptations, due to a deal Berry Gordy made with Norman Whitfield, that if "Get Ready" did not meet with the expected degree of success, then Whitfield's song, "Ain't Too Proud to Beg", would get the next release, which resulted in Whitfield more or less replacing Robinson as the group's producer.
Other cover versions
The song was Ella Fitzgerald's last US chart record (1969), reaching the Billboard Bubbling Under the Hot 100 survey (#126) and the Record World "Non-Rock Top 40". She performed it on The Carol Burnett Show in November 1969.
"The Way You Do the Things You Do" is a 1964 hit single by American group the Temptations for the Gordy (Motown) label. Written by Miracles members Smokey Robinson and Bobby Rogers, the single was the Temptations' first charting single on the US Billboard Hot 100, peaking in the Top 20 at number eleven; it also went to number one on the Cash Box R&B chart.
The song has been an American Top 40 hit in four successive decades, from the 1960s to the 1990s. A version by Hall & Oates featuring Temptation members Eddie Kendricks and David Ruffin was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1986.
Reception
John Leland at Spin said, "This record is pretty wonderful and it's definitely better than most H & O or Temps fare, but it also bores me in ways it shouldn't. If there was any emoting going on in the performance, it didn't translate onto wax."
"Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)" is a song by American soul group the Temptations, written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong. Released on the Gordy (Motown) label, and produced by Norman Whitfield, it features on the group's 1971 album, Sky's the Limit.
When released as a single, "Just My Imagination" became the third Temptations song to reach number one on the US Billboard Hot 100. The single held the number one position on the Billboard Pop Singles Chart for two weeks in 1971, from March 28 to April 10.
Composition and lyrics
A full orchestral arrangement with strings and French horns adorning a bluesy rhythm track and bass line provides the instrumentals. Music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic notes that the song is narrated by a man who imagines a relationship with the woman he loves, is canny enough to realize that his daydreams are fiction, yet is overwhelmed by them. The lyrics capture his resignation to his fantasies. The song as a whole captures their full emotional effect on him. The first two verses establish the theme and explore the narrator's daydreams, in which he and the object of his affections are lovers preparing to be married, to "raise a family" and build "a cozy little home / out in the country / with two children, maybe three". In...
Recording
Norman Whitfield began the recording of "Just My Imagination" by preparing the song's instrumental track. Whitfield arranged and recorded the non-orchestral elements of the instrumental with Motown's studio band, The Funk Brothers, who for this recording included Eddie Willis and Dennis Coffey on guitar, Jack Ashford on marimba, Jack Brokensha on timpani, Andrew Smith on drums, and Bob Babbitt on bass. Jerry Long, an arranger who had previous experience with scoring films in Paris, worked on the orchestral arrangement and conducted several members of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in performing the horns and strings for the recording. The Temptations had heard the Funk Brothers' tracks and loved them, but were "totally knocked out",...
Release and reception
Motown released "Just My Imagination" as a single on their Gordy label on January 14, 1971, with the up-tempo psychedelic soul song "You Make Your Own Heaven and Hell Right Here on Earth", from the 1970 Psychedelic Shack LP, as the B-side. The Temptations performed "Just My Imagination" and "Get Ready" for their final appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, broadcast live on January 31. On-screen, for "Get Ready" Kendricks stood several feet away from the other Temptations, and made little eye contact with them, and for "Just My Imagination" sat on a separate piece of staging; Otis Williams later remarked that one could see the group was no longer a complete unit:
