The Temptations Since the beginning of mankind, music has been an important part of culture and art. Music of the 20th century changed very rapidly with the time. Motown, a record company founded by Berry Gordy in 1959 helped push some of the changes in soul and R&B in the 1960s. The Temptations were an R&B group signed to Motown then. The Temptations were and still are a vital hit making group with many hits and songs since 1961 when they were formed. One of The Temptations biggest hits was“My Girl”. But they actually had 36 more top 40 hits on the charts. These included fifteen Top 10 tunes and a quartet that quickly went to number 1 on the R&B charts (“The Temptations Source #1”). By the end of the sixties, everybody knew who The Temptations …show more content…
According to Otis Williams in his book The Temptations, “In early 1963 we cut our sixth single, “I want a Love I Can See” backed with “The Further You Look, The Less you See”. This single marked the first time we worked with the two writer-producers who would create the bulk of our greatest hits through the sixties and seventies: Smokey Robinson and Norman Whitfield.” (Williams et al). The relationship between Smokey Robinson, Norman Whitfield and the Temptations was very close and led to the success of The …show more content…
These original members were Otis Williams, Elbridge (a.k.a. Al, or El) Bryant, Melvin Franklin, Eddie Kendricks and Paul Williams. The members of the original Temptations were each from one of two bands, the Primes and the Distants. “Although both the Primes and the Distants were popular in their local Detroit, neither group had produced a national hit,” said Otis Williams in his autobiography, The Temptations. Otis, who was from Texarkana, was “The group's founder and spokesman.” In 1964, Elbridge Bryant left the group because of personality conflicts with other group members and David Ruffin, a singer from Detroit replaced him. Ruffin rode to and from gigs in his “private limousine that was lined with mink” after the band became very famous. Ruffin also started to use cocaine and because of his drug use he missed a gig. Shortly after this, the band fired him and replaced him with Dennis Edwards. These are just some examples of the original Temptation members and their replacements. There were many other changes in the band, as