Post by tempfan on Aug 4, 2004 20:40:37 GMT -5
The Temptations Otis Williams Last Man Standing
Josh Dolgin
Hour Xpress
Talk about staying power. After over 40 years, Otis Williams is still tempting audiences as the only living original member of The Temptations, who many have dubbed the most successful group in black music history. Singing with the group since the beginning as its de facto founder and manager, Williams rocked his way through a staggering array of changing singers and management, arrangers and record labels, fads, styles and fashions. In perfect harmony.
"I love what I do, that's the inspiration right there - you gotta love it," he drawls from his perpetual tour, just waking up in a hotel somewhere in Jersey. "When you're on stage and you can see you're bringing joy and happiness to people in this troubled world that we live in - with terrorist threats, and the nuclear this, and all kind of catastrophes and what have you - they come to see The Temptations and you can see that they are genuinely being satisfied, and happy, and forgetting whatever the world's trouble and woes are at the time. That's more than money, because you're touching the human spirit."
Starting to chart hits in the early '60s, The Temptations, as part of Berry Gordy's Motown phenomenon, had an uncanny ability to change with the times, to keep in step with a human spirit that can be notoriously fickle.
"I try not to use the word 'never,' but I really don't think there will ever be another company like Motown," Williams says. "With the kind of philosophy the company had, it's one of those things that probably comes along once in a millennium. I'm just happy to be a part of something that will historically be around when a lot of us are no longer here on this earth."