Singing Group Sets New Directions, New Goals

[Ivory Fair]

Singing Group Sets New Directions, New Goals

by Louie Robinson

Ebony July, 1975

They didn’t sound like the Mills Brother,. Although there was that coal mine-deep bass voice rumbling through there, they certainly weren’t the Ink Spots or the Ravens. And the Delta Rhythm Boys never sounded like that.

High-stepping, fast-moving and sweet-singing, the original Temptations hit the music scene with an impact to match all those earth-shaking revolutions of the '60s. (There was one sly difference: while of the nation's dress style, stage and otherwise, ran to 'faded ratty jeans and bizarre affects, the Temptations came on tack-sharp and razor-clean, in fuchsias, mauve, lemon, lavender and egg-shell suits, in shirts and stylish shoes.)

The Temptations were their own thing in their own time. Coming up through the smoky corridors of the pop music scene, going through inevitable mutations of changing styles, personnel and names-the Temptations, the Distants, the Primes-the Temptations emerged as the No. 1 black male singing group in the country, blasting record charts and music halls with such songs as My Girl, Ain't Too Proud To Beg, Beauty’sj Is Only Skin Deep, Cloud Nine, Runaway Child Running Wild, Psychadedelic Shack, Just My Imagination, Super Star and Pappa Was A Stone.

Incredibly, though there were some major personnel changes along the way ("We’ve had some great people," says bass singer Melvin Franklin, who with baritone Otis Williams represents the only two original Temptations), the group has never wavered in popularity. The departures of stand-out singers David Ruffin (in 1968) and Eddie Kendricks (in 1971) and the illness and later death of Paul Williams 1971), who had originated the group's dancing style, were all severe to the Temptations. But they survived to sell 15 million records and earn $1 million annually for stage appearances.

Now, after ten years of stardom and dozens of imitators, the Temptations-with a brand new tenor singer, Glen Leonard-are revamping their act. Explains Franklin: "What we're doing is expanding our whole everything, the way we look, the area of the stage we use. All too often we bunch up in the middle of the stage. Now were stretching out so the people out there can get to see everybody clearly, thanks to the innovations of (choreographer) Lon Fontaine."

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[Ivory Fair]

Part of what is making their new stage presentation possible is the technical development_of the cordless mike, which the Temptations will now be using at a cost of some $8,000. Recent improvements on the mikes have made them free of the static interference once caused by security force walkie-talkies or the telephone beepers of doctors who might be seated in the audience. "Before, they had been working around a 'tree,' which I guess they had become famous for because there are 12 or 14 acts which have used that cluster of four microphones," says their manager of five years, Don Foster. "It was great for singing, but it restricted choreography. The cordless mikes will give them the freedom of using the whole stage.

The cordless mikes are only part of the $100,000 Foster estimates has gone into the revamping of the Temptations, including" new music, staging, props, costumes and other items. Meanwhile, the Temptations lost another $75,000 to $100,000 in monthly income during the four-month revamping period.





While most of the Temptations records were produced by Norman Whitfield (Smokey Robinson, a Motown Corp. vice president and recording star, also produced some of their early ones, including their first hit song, The Way You Do the Things You Do), their new producer is Jeffrey Bowen, who teamed up with Frank Wilson on some previous Temptations efforts. Bowen feels there is a further change in the group's music, typified by two songs, Memories and A Song For You, in an album titled after the latter tune.

"The music industry is in a. constant search for creativity," declares Bowen, "and whenever there has been time for a change, the Temptations have been in the forefront of starting it. Now, there are people out of work, there's a great deal of uncertainty about the future. People are falling back on music as an escape. Music is what keeps people in a frame of mind so they can look forward to tomorrow. It's an emotional release so you don't have to ponder too much on problems."

The new Temptations music itself is, according to Bowen, "more energy-minded. The lyrics are more realistic. They deal with more honesty in relationships between people."

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[Ivory Fair]

As Bowen indicates, the Temptations have made musical changes before. Their early work leaned heavily on the Motown-style pop. songs, but in 1968, coinciding with the departure of Ruffin, the group recorded Cloud Nine which Whitfield, then influenced by Sly and Family Stone, infused with Latin beats, rock guitars and electronic effects. The "message" era followed-songs that spoke to the people about the hazards and cruelties of the world.

The four months that the Temptations took off early this year to record and ready their new presentation has also given some needed rest from the road (they have worked and traveled up to 42 weeks a year), as well as time to reflect on the Temptations, past present and future, despite a six-hours a day exercise and rehearsal schedule.

Franklin Sees their key to longevity as "good professional quality. You see, with us, no one individual is greater than the sum the whole." His original Temptations counterpart Otis Williams gives that thought added dimension: "The difference is the way people once were and the way they are now. I know when Frankie Lyman left the Teenagers, people said the Teenagers were through, and consquently they were. When David Ruffin left, they said the Temptations' were through. But the way people look at it now is, the main thing they want is to be entertained; they don’t care who it is. They may take a little time to get over the initial shock of a change, but as long as you are entertaining them ~ giving them what they want they don't care."

It was Williams and Franklin who got together as teenagers at Detroit's Northwestern High School to form a sextet which also included Richard Street called the Questions. After a couple of name changes and some personnel fluctuations, Williams

Franklin, along with Elbridge Bryant of the original group, were joined with Paul Williams and Eddie Kendricks and in time, were signed by Motown - and became the Temptations. Bryant was replaced by Ruffin shortly before the group recorded its first record.

Street, who in the interim had been a songwriter, producer and singer, rejoined the group during the illness of Paul Williams and, after his death, became a regular. Thirty-four-year-old Street is currently the only family man in the group (all the others have been married and divorced except Dennis Edwards, who replaced Ruffin), and admits that it's a kick to be out here" in terms of entertaining people. He views his own association with the Temptations as being "the only shot I ever had, but I had been waiting for this one, because whatever I was going to do in life, I wanted to be good at it. It was a little late coming, but I appreciated it then it got here."

Street who is currently looking for a home in California to relocate his family which is still in Detroit, talked one afternoon after a rehearsal about the heady wine of fame and money following a "'lifetime of poverty in the big city ghetto, and how it so intoxicates one that they are unable to handle it. "Being in the ghetto and coming out to a group like the Temptations and making it has a lot to do with how you handle yourself while you're in the I ghetto getting ready to face life, period. If you're in the ghetto just back stabbing like everybody else, trying to make a way, then you cannot be a Temptation, because your mind is not adjusted to the standard you have to maintain just to be in this group. There’s certain standard you have to have mentally. There are a lot of people who, when you give them a chance and they get all that money, go further off into craziness. Being able to be without, and being able to appreciate it when you get it are two different things."

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[Ivory Fair]

The current man with the lucky shot is Glen Carl Leonard, a soft-spoken, 27-year-old who joined the group last April, and whom Franklin, who really should know, describes as "an excellent tenor singer." Street concurs adding, "He gives new life to the' whole thing."

Leonard was an admirer of the Temptations when he was in school never dreaming that he would one day join the group. He tried to however; in 1970 when Kendricks left, but was unsuccessful Still," says Franklin, with whom Leonard currently shares an apartment, "he kept his composure and his dignity as a gentleman and his purpose and direction straight. He kept on getting his guts,' together and practicing his art, and when the chance came back around, he was ready."

Although Leonard is a graduate of several of the hundreds of singing groups that proliferate in hope and die in dispair without even attaining stardom, by has to learn more now than ever before and admits that "I don't have too much spare time because I'm trying to catch up on so much. Of Course I feel pressure.' You don't come into an organization like this and not feel anything. But I feel as though I can handle it." The veteran members of the Temptations all have faith in him.

A native of Washington, D. C., Leonard likes to spend what spare time he does have trying to create; I like to play guitar and jot down lyrics. I like sports, I love the outdoors and I love kids." He has one daughter.

Dennis Edwards, 32, the minister's son from Birmingham, Ala., has a bachelor home in Beverly Hills where he spends much of his free time developing ideas into songs and doing exercises in addition, to the things ordinarily done by bachelors. He says he is also a television nut.

With the hectic schedule that is the bane of the traveling entertainment star none of the Temptations has much time to call his own but when Otis Williams gets his, "I try' "to find' some peace and quiet to reach back, and grab my own identity, because you wear the Temptations hat so much: When we’re not doing anything I like to create, write or draw, and sometimes go' out and catch other acts to stay in touch." .A 33-year old who lives in the same Beverly Hills apartment .complex as Franklin and Leonard Williams adds: "I really, like checking out records finding out which way the music is going. In this business it be-hooves any group .to listen. to everybody else 'because tastes in music change rapidly that if you don't pay 'attention you are subject to get left."

Melvin Franklin's approach to spare time, which he describes as our most precious commodity is "'because we are of the people I like to spend as much time as I can with .children (he has three of his own) . I tune in with them and I find it beautiful. They have love without ulterior motives."

But even in those rare moments when each member of the group resumes his separate identity, life is really not safe from being identified as a Temptation. Thirty-two-year-old Franklin, who was born, as he says, "twelve pounds of bass and brown" back in Mobile, Ala., confides that, "I can't even open my month without that deep rumble being identified as coming from a Teniptation." And Otis Williams once had to be ushered out through the delivery entrance of a Detroit department store after a small girl recognized him and started a near-stampede of auto-graph seekers and body touchers.

But for all their fame, the Temptations must still reassert their dominance, forge new trails for their legions of imitators to follows. Says Street: "What's left ahead is for us to maintain our level and even get better than we are now, but hopefully some day we won’t have to work as hard. Glen is with us now, so we re back at the level where we have to drive again."

To this, Franklin adds: "We never stop competing; good friendly competition makes for a better market. We feel we are blessed to be able to entertain the people out there. It's good. It's my thing."

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[Ivory Fair]

Otis Williams sees one of the key factors in the group's survival at the top as "being able to take direction. That's one of the most important things for any artist. My theory is that you can have all the talent in the world, but if you don't have some brains to coordinate with that talent to the point of taking directions it doesn't mean anything."

A good deal of the direction the Temptations are taking now is from choreographer Fontaine, who worked for years with the Larry Steele Show and also helped develop such stars as Ann Margret. Explains bassist Franklin: "Over ten years ago when we became the most imitated group of our type, our format was set by the great Lon Fontaine, and he is here with us now. We all believe in Lou's ability to be able to bring out the very best there is in us."

Williams adds another factor-the group's close relationship with Motown Board Chairman Berry Gordy, the company’s founder for whom they now record on a subsidiary Gordy label. "We've had that edge, over a lot of groups who probably wouldn't have that personal touch with the chairman of ,the board," Williams explains.

"Yeah," Franklin agrees, "public acceptance, a strong company behind us and a top professional group attitude; I think these three ingredients are very significant in our longevity."

The Temptations, having ridden that magic carpet from anonymity, to fame, and fortune, remain not only a landmark in the music industry, but fabled heroes and an example of hope to generation of blacks to whom listening to the Temps was a happy part of growing up. With their current sense of change and expansion, the Temptations are just about to capture another entire generation. There is little doubt that with their new songs and new backing the Temps will appeal to the young folks coming up.

[charmonee3]

Ivory thanks for the article. I remember READING that back in the day. I'm a person who NEVAH throws out Ebony so somewhere in my house I SHOULD be able to find that article. Where I really am mad at myself was when my beloved father who passed in the 70's had never thrown out HIS Ebony's and he had them from the first time they were published. Dumb me housecleaning threw them out, much to my regret.

[sukkafu]

ivory you izzz da bombette! ;D

that article was so full  of 411 i thought it was otis' book part 3! 8)

i will never never never never join another, after joining you!LOL

[Ivory Fair]

Charm, if you ever decide to hunt for that issue, keep an eye out for one from '71 (I think) with Bill Cosby and a kid on the cover. There's a article about them in there to.