Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic
Speaker 1: episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
Speaker 2: Yoya, y'all. What's up, y'all?
Speaker 3: This is Fonte Fontigelo and this is yet another QLs
Speaker 3: classic with Oldest Williams from the legendary Temptations. This one
Speaker 3: was from June thirteenth, twenty eighteen. One of the few
Speaker 3: episodes I had to miss. I hate I had to
Speaker 3: miss this one. It's really hurt my heart. Legendary baritone
Speaker 3: singer found a member of the Temptations, Oldus Williams. He
Speaker 3: discusses everything from his evolution of motown, the band's dynasty,
Speaker 3: and their album All the Time is going down right
Speaker 3: here on QLs Classics, right here on Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 1: All right, peace, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a special
Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 2: I'm your host Quest Love Jenkins and I worked me.
Speaker 1: Today is Boss pil Sugar Steve and it's Liyah Team Supreme.
Speaker 1: Today we are celebrating a legacy for the past six decades.
Speaker 1: Our next Yes was the glue that held together one
Speaker 1: of the most tightest elegant music dynasties in the history
Speaker 1: of modern Western music. Their brand, a sophisticated pop and
Speaker 1: soul with such gems as my Girl, the way you
Speaker 1: do Things you do in Ain't Proud to Big Just
Speaker 1: the name of.
Speaker 2: A few was just as crucial to the Civil rights
Speaker 2: era as lived every voices sing.
Speaker 1: There isn't a vocal group or band act of today
Speaker 1: or in the past who has not been influenced by them,
Speaker 1: from their Machelin vocal harmony structure, to their choreography, to
Speaker 1: their outfits, to their songs of love that have stood
Speaker 1: the test of time, to their political anthems. Just as
Speaker 1: relevant twenty eighteen as it was in nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 1: music would not be what it is today without the Temptations,
Speaker 1: and the Temptations would not be the everlasting institution it
Speaker 1: is without the one and only heartbeat of the Temptations.
Speaker 1: Lady and gentlemen, please welcome our guests. Sir Otus Williams.
Speaker 2: Question, Thank you.
Speaker 4: Off real good.
Speaker 1: You know I'm gonna do something a little different than
Speaker 1: I normally do on the show. Well, I want to
Speaker 1: ask you. Normally I want to go back to the beginning,
Speaker 1: but I want to ask you what keeps you going well?
Speaker 4: Of quesse on the Real side. It's love what I do.
Speaker 5: You know, when you stop and think about this world
Speaker 5: that we live in and now all the people that
Speaker 5: inhabit this world, it's a small microcosm of us that
Speaker 5: are getting to get a chance to do what we'd
Speaker 5: like to do for a long time, you know. And
Speaker 5: God has blessed me to be able to ride the
Speaker 5: heal of the horse. So I'm enjoying this, yeare. You know,
Speaker 5: it's a labor of love. And when you can bring
Speaker 5: happiness to the world over in by way of music,
Speaker 5: you know, music have been able to do some things
Speaker 5: that politicians haven't been able to do. So I love
Speaker 5: what I do and I'm thankful to God for you know,
Speaker 5: still being able to do it after fifty eight years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's impressive, and as as someone that's at the
Speaker 1: epicenter of a group.
Speaker 2: Of people and.
Speaker 1: Not controlling them per se. But I know the headaches,
Speaker 1: the daily headaches that it takes to manage different band
Speaker 1: attitudes and whatever it be it trying to put it.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that I admire you so much, and
Speaker 1: you know, I've read I've read your book. When when
Speaker 1: I was like seventeen, your your your autobiography that came out,
Speaker 1: and like, like, I know that being the glue of
Speaker 1: an institution is one of the hardest things, like where
Speaker 1: you wake up daily or weekly trying to figure out
Speaker 1: what can I get through this day without? Sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: drama and you know, I know that you've gone through
Speaker 1: like members of.
Speaker 2: The group and arguments.
Speaker 1: Like yeah, all that is it? Is it worth it that?
Speaker 1: That's really my my my question.
Speaker 2: Is it worth it that?
Speaker 4: Well? You know, look, I look at it.
Speaker 5: First of all, you're dealing with people. When you understand
Speaker 5: that you're dealing with people, then you have to really
Speaker 5: understand that a lot of you know, things come along
Speaker 5: with that, and uh, it's worth it, you know because
Speaker 5: when we're on stage and we here and see people
Speaker 5: with tears in their eyes and I'm not talking about ladies,
Speaker 5: I'm talking about grown men, you know. And we were
Speaker 5: on one night a few weeks ago and my robe
Speaker 5: bandager said, Dougiet his name is Dougie, we called him Doue.
Speaker 5: He said, oh, you have got to see this little
Speaker 5: three year old boy playing with his car and he said.
Speaker 4: Do do do do do do doud Uh.
Speaker 5: He's three years old. So when you see from three
Speaker 5: years old, all the way up to almost one hundred.
Speaker 5: It's worth it, you know. You just have to put
Speaker 5: up with uh uh, you know, the shenanigans and the
Speaker 5: moods and the what have you with people, you know,
Speaker 5: but God has helped me to make it through. They said,
Speaker 5: Barry Gordy and a lot of the heavyweights at Motown
Speaker 5: and thereabout have said, oh, you are the glue that
Speaker 5: holds the temptation together. And I figured that day, if
Speaker 5: my shoulders are big enough and strong enough to do it,
Speaker 5: then it's well worth the wait. Because when I'm at
Speaker 5: home and I walk around my house and look at
Speaker 5: all of all the things that I've achieved, it's worth there.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: It would be like me crying with a loaf of
Speaker 5: bread and the moms. So I really can't complain.
Speaker 1: Okay, I gotta I gotta take that into accountant.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I really like this guy.
Speaker 2: You would.
Speaker 1: So in the days of the Elgins, before you became
Speaker 1: a temptation. First of all, how did you guys, what
Speaker 1: was the transformation from the Elgins to the Temptations.
Speaker 5: Well, even before the Elegins, my group was called ODIs Williams.
Speaker 5: In the distance. We were with a little smaller because
Speaker 5: Northern Records and the lady that ran the label, Johnny
Speaker 5: May Matthews. She recorded us and we had a nice
Speaker 5: little regional hit called come On, and they did very well,
Speaker 5: so much so that she.
Speaker 4: Sold the masters to Warwick Records.
Speaker 5: And so one day she came from New York back
Speaker 5: to Detroit and she just taking out all these hundred dollars.
Speaker 5: You don't select them, these hundred dollar bills. And that
Speaker 5: was about this, about seventeen eighteen years old, and she said, well,
Speaker 5: you guys, your record's gonna be here all over America,
Speaker 5: sold into Warwick Records, and now they can hear it all.
Speaker 4: Over the world. And I said, oh that's good.
Speaker 5: Did we get some roll with this other because I
Speaker 5: wrote the first love regional hit And she looked at
Speaker 5: me with the jounter's eye, she said.
Speaker 4: You getting none of this money. This is my money. Now.
Speaker 5: We were doing record hops back done those days, and
Speaker 5: record hops is well as you go around to the
Speaker 5: disc jockeys record hops and so they can continue to
Speaker 5: play records. So Smoking Smoking Miracle, Smoking Robinson and the
Speaker 5: Miracles were very hot at the time, and mister Gordon
Speaker 5: was them. So we could see them from the stage,
Speaker 5: and as they were coming in, we came off and
Speaker 5: mister Gordon said, I like your group.
Speaker 4: Your record. If you should leave where you are, come
Speaker 4: see me. And I did you know?
Speaker 5: Because Johnny Mae had said we were gonna get any
Speaker 5: of that money. So I called mister Gordon and he said,
Speaker 5: come on over here and UH see Mickey Stevens.
Speaker 4: It was an r man.
Speaker 5: So johnny Mae kept the name that uh od the
Speaker 5: swims in the distance, so I guess, being young and whatever,
Speaker 5: I said, well keep the name.
Speaker 4: We young. We'll start all over again.
Speaker 5: So when we got over to Motown, we stood out
Speaker 5: in front of a building called uh the uh Legal
Speaker 5: Department of Motown, and a guy name was Bill Mitchell.
Speaker 5: He said, so what are we gonna call you guys?
Speaker 5: And we stood there and we stood there. He said,
Speaker 5: what about the temptation? I said, I like that. And
Speaker 5: at the time David Ruffing wasn't in the group, but
Speaker 5: Al Bryant, Eddie Kendricks, Paul Williams, and Melvin Franklin myself.
Speaker 5: We were the no name group at the time. So
Speaker 5: I said, I like that, and I asked it's Paul.
Speaker 5: I rep I asked all the guys, but Paul Williams said,
Speaker 5: oldis a name is whatever we make it. So that's
Speaker 5: a temptation. So Bill hollered back up to legal department
Speaker 5: put on the contract to Temptations, and so in nineteen
Speaker 5: sixty one, all the way up till now we have
Speaker 5: been known as the Temptation.
Speaker 6: The movie totally got that wrong. They over dramatized that
Speaker 6: whole thing. They said, y'all was sitting outside for like
Speaker 6: eight hours trying to figure out outside of Hitsville, and
Speaker 6: then you come in and then mister Gordy says, well,
Speaker 6: what's your name? Because I can't have y'all be whatever
Speaker 6: y'all said y'all was, and y'all but like we got
Speaker 6: to make it sexy. Yeah, yeah, they're del dramatized.
Speaker 5: You know what I learned when I say, because I'm
Speaker 5: being honest with you, I have yet to sit and
Speaker 5: watch that mini series.
Speaker 1: Seriously, right, I understand that, but I'm just worried because
Speaker 1: now they just they show it so much.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, Well, what I learned a little bit that
Speaker 5: I saw the scene where as Melvin Franklin and myself
Speaker 5: had to go to the David reference apartment. Now the
Speaker 5: guy that played me, what is it? Then Charles Maleek
Speaker 5: d B. Woodside who played Melvin, and naturally Leon. So
Speaker 5: I'm standing in the shadows in the way they're getting
Speaker 5: the lighting and everything else fixed up. So Allen Archis,
Speaker 5: the director, said, all right, action camera.
Speaker 4: I rolled them.
Speaker 5: The girl came out with the class well bap and
Speaker 5: the two brothers that played Melburn and myself knocked on
Speaker 5: the door, and Leon opened the door. And when they
Speaker 5: started to deliver their lives, I said, oh no, I
Speaker 5: can't watch this.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 5: We're talking about the year in nineteen ninety eight, but
Speaker 5: when that incident happened, it was nineteen sixty six, so
Speaker 5: it lets you know that there was still a lot
Speaker 5: of stuff done underneath. So one day we're in New
Speaker 5: York where my players getting ready to open up, I
Speaker 5: mean in DC at the Kennedy Center, and Smoker heard
Speaker 5: that I hadn't seen the movie. He said, he calls me, oh, oh,
Speaker 5: you mean you haven't seen a movie. I said, now, Smoker,
Speaker 5: I don't want to cry. Oh you need to watch
Speaker 5: a movie. I said, well, I'll get round to watch it.
Speaker 5: I said, well, let me ask you something. Smoker have
Speaker 5: you watched it? Oh, I'll watch it, I said, did
Speaker 5: you cry?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I cry. So you need to get your box of
Speaker 4: clean aches and sit down and watch it.
Speaker 5: I have yet to watch it, but when I saw
Speaker 5: it up in Berkeley, I sat there and the move
Speaker 5: I mean, the play is very touching. It's gonna be
Speaker 5: seen that you need to take a cleen axe.
Speaker 6: Wait, what's the difference, cause there's an actual there's a
Speaker 6: play versus the shu the miniseries that we saw.
Speaker 5: Well, the play is very touching in the sense of
Speaker 5: you get another kind of feel in person. And uh so,
Speaker 5: as I'm sitting there watching it, the people that's sitting
Speaker 5: around me, they would watch the play and they would
Speaker 5: do like to.
Speaker 4: See them get a glance at you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they want to see if I'm crying and true
Speaker 5: enough tears well enough in my eyes because there's a
Speaker 5: scene whereas uh uh the white folks are shooting at
Speaker 5: us down south and uh oh yeah, no, we went
Speaker 5: through all that, you know, so it's been very real.
Speaker 5: But you know, I'm very glad that, you know, I
Speaker 5: was able to put it in paper. Now from that
Speaker 5: to it'll start next month and and it'll be there
Speaker 5: for five weeks and then they'll go to LA and
Speaker 5: then from LA to Toronto and then hopefully Broadway. And
Speaker 5: they're just waiting for the right theater. And the name
Speaker 5: of it is Ain't Too Proud The Life and Times
Speaker 5: of the Temptations.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I got to meet the people that produced that.
Speaker 4: A right, I mean I wrote the screen.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Detroit girl, she's yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's amazing.
Speaker 6: And do you at least do like have anything to
Speaker 6: do with the casting, either the mini series or the
Speaker 6: play for the person who plays you? Do you care?
Speaker 2: Do you well?
Speaker 5: At first I wanted Lead to play me because Lee
Speaker 5: and I we're pretty close.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 5: When we get to the greenlight that it was going to
Speaker 5: be done on NBC, I told us, he, man, they're
Speaker 5: going to do the Times Life story. I would love
Speaker 5: for you to play me. He said, oh, oldest man.
Speaker 5: You know you my man, I'd be glad to play you.
Speaker 5: So the temps we went to Paris to do it
Speaker 5: one night or so. By the time we came back
Speaker 5: from Paris, my manager Shelley said, well, got the green light,
Speaker 5: we're gonna do it, and uh, but I got to
Speaker 5: tell you good news and bad news.
Speaker 4: I said, Okay, what's that?
Speaker 7: I said?
Speaker 5: He said, well, Leon is going to be in the miniseries.
Speaker 5: That's all good, So what's the bad news? He's gonna
Speaker 5: play David Ruffing?
Speaker 4: What David? I meant? What Leon did. While we were
Speaker 4: over in Paris.
Speaker 5: Leon went at the pasts that we used to wear
Speaker 5: back then and called the content on tight all the
Speaker 5: way down. He went and got his hair, you know,
Speaker 5: like David used to wear in the glasses.
Speaker 4: Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 5: And when he walked into the casting with all the
Speaker 5: powers to be that was sitting there Susane in the
Speaker 5: past and them said, you play David Ruffing.
Speaker 4: That's how he got the role.
Speaker 1: It's weird that you haven't seen it because one of
Speaker 1: the most iconic lines from it that's become an internet
Speaker 1: meme is.
Speaker 4: You know I've been getting that class everywhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: But I said, yeah, but look at me now, I'm
Speaker 4: still here. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, when you guys.
Speaker 1: Started at Motown, explain to our listeners the idea of
Speaker 1: the charm School, oh wow, going through Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: just the idea of what was the idea behind wanting
Speaker 1: to present.
Speaker 2: That and sophisticated.
Speaker 1: Sure, look to America as what was it before and
Speaker 1: why was that such a revolutionary move?
Speaker 5: Well, I think, you know, talent a lot of times
Speaker 5: need to be cultivated. You know, you're gonna have all
Speaker 5: the talent in the world, but it's one thing to
Speaker 5: know how to present yourself when you are, you know,
Speaker 5: really out on the front street.
Speaker 4: And I have to give.
Speaker 5: Those accolades to a lot of people, say Barry Gordon, No,
Speaker 5: I have to give a credit to Harvey a few
Speaker 5: kuah Harvey a few quas from the monglobes, and he
Speaker 5: knew Charlie Adkins, and so in the process of Motown
Speaker 5: really becoming the iconic label it is known for today,
Speaker 5: evidently Harvey must have met Barry and said, you know,
Speaker 5: we need to groom these talented kids. And so Barry
Speaker 5: felt as though it would be a good idea, and
Speaker 5: they opened up a UH Artists development right across the
Speaker 5: street from uh Hitsville. We had to be there when
Speaker 5: uh it was time for us to reheards from ten
Speaker 5: in the morning til five to six o'clock in the evening.
Speaker 5: And it was headed by the late Great Charlie Atkins,
Speaker 5: the late Great Maurice King.
Speaker 4: Who was our vocal coach, and Charlie was our.
Speaker 5: Choreographer Johnny Allen, who would be at the piano and
Speaker 5: you know, keeping us everything uh you know, uh theoretical,
Speaker 5: musically uh correct and uh they sat down and they
Speaker 5: would tell us how to really carry ourselves. You know,
Speaker 5: it's one thing to have all the talent in the world.
Speaker 5: But if that's one thing I hate, and I'm always
Speaker 5: trying to be cognizant of it. I hate for artists
Speaker 5: get on, uh you know, do inview well them now
Speaker 5: do dudes, and you know, don't talk correctly. They said,
Speaker 5: you guys need to know how to talk. You know,
Speaker 5: of course the world to be watching you. And they
Speaker 5: told this thing like four things. Maurice King said, don't
Speaker 5: get involved with you can never tell nobody about how
Speaker 5: they spend their money, religion, who they make love to.
Speaker 5: And it's the four when night politics that I said,
Speaker 5: politics that so and we've had that occasion to come
Speaker 5: up and I I'm so glad that I had that
Speaker 5: kind of knowledge being taught at Motown, you know.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 5: But they really, you know, put a lot into us
Speaker 5: because they were grooming us to go come to the
Speaker 5: Copa Cabana in the smart rooms. So we would have
Speaker 5: to rehearse from ten in the morning to six in
Speaker 5: the evening. And it paid off because you know, I
Speaker 5: look at a lot of the earlier films and I
Speaker 5: can see where the proper presentation and how to carry
Speaker 5: ourselves and how to present ourselves in the sense of
Speaker 5: speaking interviews and what have you. So it is one
Speaker 5: of the only company I believe that will that they
Speaker 5: ever had, that that will never ever be another Motown.
Speaker 1: So would you guys, I know that, at least in
Speaker 1: the sixties, to play the Kopa right was like the dream. Yes,
Speaker 1: but similar to how Sam Cook would do it, Like
Speaker 1: if you were playing the Black Venue, then he did
Speaker 1: the show enough, get down, you know, sweat off my brow,
Speaker 1: rebel rousing show. But if at the Copa, then shooting time.
Speaker 1: So would you guys have dual shows depending on who
Speaker 1: the audience was. No, so even Mellow Mood Temptations would
Speaker 1: play the Apollo to that after.
Speaker 5: We open up at the Copa, because we hold all
Speaker 5: the existing records at the Copa, we went to the
Speaker 5: Apollo and we opened up with Hollo Young Lovers, I
Speaker 5: really love Yes.
Speaker 2: And it worked.
Speaker 1: It Yes, Yes, So it was almost like a job. Well,
Speaker 1: I saw Michael Jackson's I D card, So you guys
Speaker 1: would have to have these ID cards at Motown or
Speaker 1: or at Hitsville.
Speaker 5: Not really, So it was they gave them out, you know,
Speaker 5: you losing, Yeah, and then we they knew who we were.
Speaker 5: We wanted to walk through whatever department. Hey, what's happening
Speaker 5: over temp y'all back in town? You know, so it
Speaker 5: would never always know where real bo who you? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: So how many hours a day would you guys? Uh
Speaker 1: RaSE verse? And how how did Charlie find that much
Speaker 1: time to devote to each of the acts because he
Speaker 1: was he literally was doing everyone from the sixties and
Speaker 1: the seventies, Yeah, and coming up with these ideas like
Speaker 1: what was his creative process too?
Speaker 5: You know? I tell you when I first became away
Speaker 5: of Charlie's uh choreography, the Cadillacs and Detroit where they
Speaker 5: came to Detroit. Man, Now you know Radio City is
Speaker 5: the largest indoor theater in America. Fox did in Detroit
Speaker 5: is the second to see five thousand people going crazy
Speaker 5: over with five guys are going on the stage. And
Speaker 5: I said, that's what I want to do now. I
Speaker 5: was about sixteen years old. So one day I met
Speaker 5: one of the Cadillacs outside of the Fox and I
Speaker 5: asked him how did they do all that?
Speaker 4: Who told him that?
Speaker 5: And he said, well, young brother, you know, if you
Speaker 5: should ever want to do what we're doing, look for
Speaker 5: a young man named Charlie Atkins. Nineteen sixty four, we
Speaker 5: were at the Howard Theater were Gladys Knight and a
Speaker 5: big act. I run out of acts and Charlie was
Speaker 5: there and I said, oh my goodness, that's Charlie Atkins
Speaker 5: and sat and talked with him, and he showed me.
Speaker 5: I still remember the first move. He said, if I
Speaker 5: had you guys don't the way you do the things
Speaker 5: you do, I'll show you what I would do. And
Speaker 5: he got him, did move and opened his arms and
Speaker 5: there I said, man, But Paul Williams was our choreographer
Speaker 5: of the temps. But they would work it out systematically,
Speaker 5: you know, for the hours they would have, like our
Speaker 5: temps you all would have from like one o'clock to four,
Speaker 5: and then from four to five the supremes would come in,
Speaker 5: you know, So they had it systematically worked out where
Speaker 5: he would give all the acts that needed to come
Speaker 5: into Motown for that sending amount of time to do it.
Speaker 5: But we had to be there, damn there every day.
Speaker 5: I mean it was like being in school work. Oh yeah,
Speaker 5: it worked.
Speaker 2: So touring with the with the Hitsfield Review.
Speaker 1: Described to our listeners, Uh, the difference between below the
Speaker 1: Mason Dixon Line touring down South as opposed to doing
Speaker 1: the show Los Angeles or or was it the same?
Speaker 4: Just no, no, it was different.
Speaker 2: So did you dread? Did you guys dread going down South?
Speaker 5: Not really, because we knew we had fans that wanted
Speaker 5: to see us because our record was breaking out all
Speaker 5: over the you know, America. But you can feel a
Speaker 5: different kind of wind chill factor when you got down
Speaker 5: in certain parts of the South. Like I'm from Texas
Speaker 5: and so we were on h Henry Wynn tour, who
Speaker 5: was the own of the Royal Peacock in Atlanta, Georgia,
Speaker 5: so he would always have these big rock and roll shows.
Speaker 4: So we got off the bus in Texas.
Speaker 5: And we wanted to eat, get something neat, And when
Speaker 5: we walked into this restaurant, white guy said, oh, we
Speaker 5: don't serve and he used in the inn word and
Speaker 5: we said we don't eat. Him you know, we had
Speaker 5: to find a place that we could go and uh
Speaker 5: you know that would feed us.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: So did you guys use that travel guide I see? Yeah,
Speaker 2: green book?
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Green book, the travel guy that lets black
Speaker 1: artists and black travelers down south know what restaurants are
Speaker 1: saying or what.
Speaker 5: Now, we never did, we just it was a different
Speaker 5: kind of network, you know, because we would find out
Speaker 5: where to go. There were people that, like say and
Speaker 5: said in his book, that would house us as black artists,
Speaker 5: you know, because a lot of hotels wouldn't take us,
Speaker 5: you know, because we were black. So there were certain
Speaker 5: homes and places down there that would you know, let
Speaker 5: us stay and feed us and what have you.
Speaker 1: Plus you had you also had white people on the
Speaker 1: bus as well. So if it was a case of
Speaker 1: getting to go orders without you guys having.
Speaker 5: To go in like not on our bus. Real all
Speaker 5: blackness really yeah? Wow, yeah, yep, Yeah, that's what we
Speaker 5: were saying.
Speaker 6: Y'all needed a guide or something.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well we had the best guy in the world.
Speaker 6: God amen.
Speaker 4: He wrote us through all that.
Speaker 1: What was the what was the city the one city
Speaker 1: or state that you dreaded going to at least in
Speaker 1: that period in the in the mid sixties early sixties.
Speaker 4: Wow, I don't get in trouble, but Mississippi.
Speaker 6: With the Mississippi God, damn, that was here, y'all.
Speaker 4: I mean.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but uh, we were in Columbia, South Carolina, nineteen
Speaker 5: sixty four and place was rocking. They had a rope
Speaker 5: right down the center of the auditorium, blacks on one side,
Speaker 5: white on the other. So we were singing and sound man,
Speaker 5: this ship ain't cool, you know. So okay, we came back,
Speaker 5: same venue, same city next year. That next year, there
Speaker 5: was no rope, black and white sitting side by side,
Speaker 5: booty banging, high fiving and having fun. If it wasn't
Speaker 5: for the sweat that we were sweating, you would have
Speaker 5: seen five guys on stage crying.
Speaker 4: The power of music, were y'all?
Speaker 6: Then after that moment, because they showed that in the
Speaker 6: in the series too. But after that moment, did it change?
Speaker 6: Uh in the sense of groupies as well, because it
Speaker 6: wasn't now safe to have like groupies of all colors?
Speaker 6: Like did you see the difference in that?
Speaker 4: Well, the group is back there, I mean, how did
Speaker 4: that work?
Speaker 7: Like?
Speaker 6: When the Uh, you.
Speaker 5: Have to be very cautious cautious that you know, uh,
Speaker 5: we always pretty much stayed within our color line, you know,
Speaker 5: be old, so we knew how if you did that,
Speaker 5: like Chuck Berry said, he did that, he ain't got no,
Speaker 5: we weren't getting there. No no, no, no no no.
Speaker 5: I am not going to the gray Ball Hotel.
Speaker 4: You know so.
Speaker 2: Nice Gray Bard Damn.
Speaker 4: Oh, I love it.
Speaker 5: I've been told you you should do an odicism because
Speaker 5: that's the way my ID done.
Speaker 4: Excuse me, what the hell is a ring? Hey, Shelley,
Speaker 4: I'll call you back. It's my manager. I'll call you back.
Speaker 4: Jail shall we still okay? Yeah, see you later, gone.
Speaker 6: See you later, taking.
Speaker 1: Shall he's been the temptatious manager since the beginning correct
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six.
Speaker 2: That's well, that's amazing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's getting ready to be eighty years.
Speaker 2: Old and still going strong, still sharpens.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, he'll be uh at the play. He's coming
Speaker 5: here because the stage temptations they are already rehearsing now okay,
Speaker 5: and I just talked with a couple of them. So
Speaker 5: he's coming in to sit and watch that and make
Speaker 5: sure everything is going correct.
Speaker 2: It's amazing.
Speaker 1: So when you when you guys, uh, got to the
Speaker 1: late sixties and was easing into your psychedelic phase. Sure,
Speaker 1: I guess it starts with the Cloud nine record. Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, the addition of is that when Dennis
Speaker 1: made his debut with the group.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, uh, Cloud and Iron came about gambling. Huff
Speaker 5: was a friend of mine. Him and I were talking
Speaker 5: Warwick Hotel right up the road. So as him and
Speaker 5: I were talking, uh, we heard this boom boom boom too,
Speaker 5: so it stopped. We stopped and said, uh, who the
Speaker 5: hell is that you know with that? Cause it was
Speaker 5: so different. So we listened and the guy said I
Speaker 5: was Sliding the Family Stone. So went back to Detroit.
Speaker 5: Now Norman Woodfield had recorded Ain't too Proud to Bey,
Speaker 5: Please Return your Love. I wish you would range. So
Speaker 5: we were doing the ballots and what have you. So
Speaker 5: when we came back to Detroit, Norman and I we
Speaker 5: grew up together because he played tambourine on my first
Speaker 5: hit with jud Mae Matthews. So I asked you, Norman,
Speaker 5: I said, Norman, have you heard this group called Slide
Speaker 5: the Family Stone? And Norman was very cocky.
Speaker 4: No, man, I ain't heard no damn slide.
Speaker 5: I said, well, you should check them out, man, because
Speaker 5: they doing something that we should probably uh check out,
Speaker 5: because we were letting David go at the time. So
Speaker 5: nor no, no, no, you know, he did all that
Speaker 5: wolf in and ghetto. So we went out of town
Speaker 5: and came back in. He had recorded the track to
Speaker 5: Cloud nine. I said, oh, all right, he used it
Speaker 5: N word on men, just go ahead and record this year,
Speaker 5: and we went in and recorded. Now, we were spoiled
Speaker 5: because most cases, when we would record any of our records,
Speaker 5: like the Way You Do Things, you do My Girl
Speaker 5: and whatever, or it just run up the charts and
Speaker 5: just craw from R and B right on to pop.
Speaker 5: So when they released Cloud nine, uh, it was spooky,
Speaker 5: you know, because we had gotten so used to having
Speaker 5: hits jump right on the charts right away. So about
Speaker 5: a week and a half, two weeks all almost three,
Speaker 5: we're gonna say, oh my god, yeah, I said, oh damn,
Speaker 5: we didn't dropped on this one motown call. He said,
Speaker 5: well they finally took off, you know, And I guess
Speaker 5: our fans were saying, what the hell did the temptation?
Speaker 4: Dude?
Speaker 5: This is so Differentulu. We were just coming off a
Speaker 5: hit up please Return Your Love. Yeah, and uh so
Speaker 5: it really you know, Skyrocketer and we got the first
Speaker 5: Grammy for the Tams in Motown and that was nineteen
Speaker 5: sixty eight, and that was Dennis's first big hit with
Speaker 5: the Tams.
Speaker 4: Time Out.
Speaker 1: Yes, Motown's first Grammy in nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 2: Yes, so they weren't the Grammys. Weren't that? I mean
Speaker 2: the number one record? Like what the fuck? That's what
Speaker 2: you gotta figure it?
Speaker 4: Like, that's all right, you gets told.
Speaker 1: You gotta figure out, like records like South Pacific and
Speaker 1: the Mind of Bob Newhart was like number one, Like
Speaker 1: those records were number one in the sixties.
Speaker 2: Like the Beatles. The Beatles don't have a Grammy. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't think that, Yeah, the Beatles on Wow.
Speaker 1: So it's just like, yeah, early seventies when like, yeah,
Speaker 1: semi inclusive, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but yeah, that's that's that is crazy to know that.
Speaker 1: But with okay, I'm glad you brought that up because
Speaker 1: I always wanted to know.
Speaker 8: One.
Speaker 2: Were you guys even aware or at least Norman?
Speaker 1: I think it was more to Norman and less to
Speaker 1: you guys. But were you guys even aware of sly
Speaker 1: Stones kind of casual flip off on high fun the
Speaker 1: summertime to you guys, oh somewhat yeah, like what did
Speaker 1: you guys? Do you guys know the story behind it? Okay,
Speaker 1: So Roses parts of Hot Fun in Summerstime was basically
Speaker 1: Sly like I we invented the breakdown, the boo boo
Speaker 1: breakdown and you know, like just bucking a little shot.
Speaker 1: I never knew that. But it was aimed at Norman.
Speaker 1: But did he did he ever respond? Did he ever
Speaker 1: meet Sly?
Speaker 2: Or do you know?
Speaker 5: Not that I know of, I don't know if he
Speaker 5: ever met so Baker, So no, I don't. He never
Speaker 5: mentioned it to me, Okay.
Speaker 1: Okay, Now I've always been curious about that because I
Speaker 1: think Slilight finally revealed it, like maybe.
Speaker 2: Fifteen years ago.
Speaker 1: But as far as h Norman Whitfield's productions and the
Speaker 1: heavy militancy, militant message of the group far away from
Speaker 1: wanting to be at the copa, and you know, how
Speaker 1: did you guys manage to convince Barry Gordy that that's
Speaker 1: the direction of the group. Like a song like Run
Speaker 1: Charlie Run, which speaks of white flight in the most
Speaker 1: explicit terms possible like, how was how did Barry take that?
Speaker 4: You know what quest?
Speaker 5: We were having so many hit records with Norman that
Speaker 5: when we made the transition from the ballots and you know,
Speaker 5: straight up on b within the cloud. Nine told me
Speaker 5: one day he said, you know the oldest baring him,
Speaker 5: don't even bother us anymore about quality control because every
Speaker 5: Friday they would have what they call qualitative control everything
Speaker 5: that was recorded during the week. They would sit down
Speaker 5: at the end of the week and listen at and say, yeah,
Speaker 5: they what and man, I think this needs to be
Speaker 5: a little more heavy based and not too much too
Speaker 5: much of that. You know, they do all that kind
Speaker 5: of critiquing and uh so, uh Norman would be part
Speaker 5: of that. You know, he would be in there because
Speaker 5: he was one of the producers. But you know, we
Speaker 5: were having so many hit records with the Norman and
Speaker 5: that they didn't never bother us about whatever we would
Speaker 5: come up with. Because when Norman came up with that song,
Speaker 5: run Charlie Run, Huh the niggas are coming, I said, Norman,
Speaker 5: you got to be kidding. Yeah, But that was Norman.
Speaker 5: He was that kind of creative person outside of the box.
Speaker 1: Were you guys at all confused about his Like, I
Speaker 1: know that he was trying to, as a producer, present
Speaker 1: the cinematic scope of you know, have a lot of
Speaker 1: drama in his music. So songs like Masterpiece will let
Speaker 1: six seven minutes go by before the vocals even.
Speaker 2: Start, which which is unprecedented.
Speaker 1: I mean now it's standard standard, but back then it
Speaker 1: was like I didn't even know that Masterpiece had lyrics
Speaker 1: that like, I just assumed that the whole thing was
Speaker 1: an instrumental.
Speaker 5: I'll tell you some questions. It's very interesting that you
Speaker 5: should bring that up, because that was the song that
Speaker 5: made me say, oh, we got to leave Norman one.
Speaker 4: We were over in a straight on that Belgium.
Speaker 5: So they sent me a breakdown of what was happening,
Speaker 5: excuse me, and the article said the Norman would feeld
Speaker 5: singers all of us. Wow, wait, the Norman would feel singers.
Speaker 5: And it was about Masterpiece. Boy, I mean, I was
Speaker 5: sold down. Mad I called and said what So when
Speaker 5: we got back to Detroit, I told him Barr I said,
Speaker 5: we gotta let Norman go because when you listen at Masterpiece,
Speaker 5: it's just only a little small segment of us singing,
Speaker 5: and everything else is all this said, beautifully elongated strange
Speaker 5: horns and doom doom, doom doom, all.
Speaker 4: That I know.
Speaker 5: Mary said, yes, yeah, you're right, because we had such
Speaker 5: a great run with Norman. But you know when they
Speaker 5: started calling us the Norman would Field singers, I said, no, no,
Speaker 5: we didn't work all these years. It's hard to lose
Speaker 5: our identity. Yeah, just that quick. And but that's the
Speaker 5: song that made me call and said we gotta go.
Speaker 5: And Berry there again was always there for Melvin and myself,
Speaker 5: And that was the song that was the changing thing
Speaker 5: from us leaving Norman after about eight or nine years
Speaker 5: of being with Norman.
Speaker 4: What was hits?
Speaker 1: But what was his theory for making these songs thirteen
Speaker 1: fourteen minutes long?
Speaker 5: Well normal is you know, he was very innovative. He
Speaker 5: always wanted to be different from Smokey and Holland Dosja
Speaker 5: Holland and Astro and Simpson. So he definitely always you know,
Speaker 5: after Please Return Your Love and when we ventured over
Speaker 5: to uh Cloud nine, he always started to think out
Speaker 5: of the box. So, like I said, the run Charlie
Speaker 5: Run and uh uh the Cloud Nines and the message
Speaker 5: from a Black Man, that was just his way of
Speaker 5: expressing uh hisself, of wanting to be different, and uh
Speaker 5: he just uh started thinking that way and he we
Speaker 5: could not get him to come back to the sweet ballance.
Speaker 5: The only way we got him to do just uh
Speaker 5: my uh, just my imagination. Well, I said, Norman, we
Speaker 5: out there, we hear what our found, our fans want
Speaker 5: us to do. You got to come on and get
Speaker 5: off of that side. Yeah yeah, yeah, man. You know
Speaker 5: y to know Norman, very cocky, very gootistical, wonderful friend
Speaker 5: of mine. But you have to know how to deal
Speaker 5: with Norman. So he recorded Just My Imagination and that
Speaker 5: was the last record Eddie Kendricks did with us. And
Speaker 5: I so uh saw USA on Ed Sullivan and we
Speaker 5: were singing Just My Imagination. And I looked at it
Speaker 5: and I said, boy, I wonder if the world can
Speaker 5: look at the uh our faces said, those guys don't
Speaker 5: look to be too happy. Oh, next time you see
Speaker 5: it on Uh. Of course they showed it the other night.
Speaker 5: And we're sitting there singing on a little box and
Speaker 5: you know, looking just straight ahead, no emotion in your
Speaker 5: other than sadness. And uh but you know that's the
Speaker 5: way it goes sometimes when you're dealing with very uh
Speaker 5: talented people.
Speaker 1: I was asking how hard was it to to lose
Speaker 1: Eddie Kendricks as a singer because his I mean with
Speaker 1: at least with uh uh Dennis right and in his
Speaker 1: raspy baritone fitting but Eddie's falsetto is such a smooth
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, was it hard to lose?
Speaker 7: And uh yeah it was r It was rough to
Speaker 7: lose uh Eddie because he was such a such a talent,
Speaker 7: you know, far as singing, and he's been no excuse me,
Speaker 7: no that it's one of the best tennis group wise.
Speaker 5: Uh yeah, in the business, you know. But uh, I'm
Speaker 5: often asked about otis when you need to find somebody,
Speaker 5: what do you look for? I look for I don't
Speaker 5: look for talent first, so see that's the look I
Speaker 5: always would get.
Speaker 4: You don't. What is?
Speaker 5: I look forhead and heart? You can have all the
Speaker 5: talent in the world. Excuse me, if your asshole of
Speaker 5: a person you're going to negate the talent, that's it.
Speaker 4: I can vouch for that.
Speaker 1: Actually, personally, I actually have all the talent in the world.
Speaker 4: It's it's unfortunately but accurate.
Speaker 1: When you when you first of all, how how are
Speaker 1: the the exits and entry. I mean, I'm sure everyone
Speaker 1: in their mind would like to think like everything was
Speaker 1: amicable and you know, guys.
Speaker 2: I just get my one month notice, Like how how
Speaker 2: how are they executed? And how fast do you have
Speaker 2: to find? Like what was the network?
Speaker 1: Like at least with the Internet, I can go on
Speaker 1: in search and search drummer instantly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but now it wasn't like I like that. Well
Speaker 4: for us.
Speaker 5: We were at the Copa and at the time Paul
Speaker 5: Williams then they said it was moving Frank with myself
Speaker 5: and Eddie. Eddie and myself got into an argument. So
Speaker 5: we were doing two shows at the Copa and we
Speaker 5: stayed right around the corner of the Sharing Netherlands. Uh
Speaker 5: so I went back to the hotel until uh it
Speaker 5: was time to come back to do the second show.
Speaker 5: We ended up doing the show with four. Eddie just said,
Speaker 5: kissed the monkey on the boss spot, I'm gone, and
Speaker 5: we had to do the show at the Copa with.
Speaker 4: Four, so it was no fellas.
Speaker 5: After the show, I'm gonna leave, Eddie said, yeah, I
Speaker 5: had to deal with that kind of stuff. Oh, I
Speaker 5: mean I can go down in my home. That is
Speaker 5: a friend of mine that did a beautiful portrait of
Speaker 5: twenty two different members.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 5: I got to ask her to do oh yeah, nice
Speaker 5: twenty four whoa yeah, And I was standing in my
Speaker 5: living room and look from al all the way up
Speaker 5: until till now. But I got to add Willie and Larry
Speaker 5: they would be Was.
Speaker 6: There ever a moment where you were like, okay, just
Speaker 6: I can't lose Melon, Like, was there a person like
Speaker 6: I just can't lose Melvin. I just can't lose it.
Speaker 5: Just we Yeah, well I didn't want to lose Melo well, right.
Speaker 6: Because in my mind I'm like, who replaces Melvion?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, well you got lucky with Ray Davis, like
Speaker 1: if someone had to replace it Melvin.
Speaker 2: Right when I found out that Ray Davis was.
Speaker 1: A replacement, I was like, oh my god, that's that's
Speaker 1: like because he always wanted to be a you know
Speaker 1: what I mean.
Speaker 2: So the fact that you got him.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was a short lived thing with Ray because
Speaker 5: he did for lovers only, right, just one project, right,
Speaker 5: And I would always send whomever would join the group
Speaker 5: to the doctor. We said, you have to be checked
Speaker 5: out because we have been told that we are athletes
Speaker 5: that just sing, you know, because there are times were
Speaker 5: on the stage, we have to be on stage four
Speaker 5: and a hair you know, doing all that stuff. You
Speaker 5: built up being good shape. So uh, Ray went to
Speaker 5: uh our doctor. So I always go and get mind
Speaker 5: your physical for what we're doing. So doctor Heygary said, well,
Speaker 5: older said, I'm I got some bad news to tell you.
Speaker 5: You need to look for another bass singer. I said, really, Doc,
Speaker 5: He said he's not gonna be hit too long. Oh man,
Speaker 5: cancer and I Ray didn't smoke. It didn't smoke, and
Speaker 5: true enough we had to let him go because of
Speaker 5: health reasons.
Speaker 4: Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 5: But the guy that we have now, Willy Green, and
Speaker 5: you know, uh people said, yu, you oldest had found
Speaker 5: someone almost the equivalents of Melvin England. Ye okay, yeah,
Speaker 5: Willie is a cold piece of work.
Speaker 6: You mentioned. You know, this whole thing is physical. You
Speaker 6: have to go to the doctors. How do you ODIs
Speaker 6: preserve your knees? I mean y'all performed on hard bottom shoes, yes,
Speaker 6: for decades?
Speaker 4: Well this year right me?
Speaker 5: Now, Uh, I've had surgery on both of the you know,
Speaker 5: from years of dancing, you know, and then rehearsing, you know,
Speaker 5: because can you.
Speaker 6: Wear sneakers now, No, it's still the hard Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I can wear pretty much the only thing that
Speaker 5: bothers like going up and coming downstairs. But other than that,
Speaker 5: when it's time to hit the stage, kiss the monkey
Speaker 5: on the balls.
Speaker 1: But I'm there, so that's the ass right Wait, speaking
Speaker 1: of stage, Yeah, who invented the Temptations microphone stand?
Speaker 4: You know what?
Speaker 5: I have to give credit to David Ruffin when they
Speaker 5: were rehearsing us for the Coca Cabato and you know,
Speaker 5: Charlie Atkins non Fontaine. So we around rehearsing and we
Speaker 5: had a moment just to sit and kick it. So
Speaker 5: David said, man, you know, if we really wanted to
Speaker 5: be different, you know what we should do. We should
Speaker 5: get a microphone that with four heads on it and
Speaker 5: we can stand around that. And so we just give
Speaker 5: you know, kibbish and whatever. And uh, Lane Fontaine, who
Speaker 5: was helping us do the icography, he said, oh, I
Speaker 5: know somebody can do that. I said really, he said yeah.
Speaker 5: I said, well, we drew up a thing with the
Speaker 5: pole and the fourheaded mic Lan knew somebody at the
Speaker 5: Star Trek back then, somebody connected with Star Trek Wow
Speaker 5: fixed the microphone up for us and I gave it
Speaker 5: to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 5: And the reason we stopped using it because it was
Speaker 5: unique for us moving right there in the spot. But
Speaker 5: we wanted to open up. We couldn't open up because
Speaker 5: the mic was just right there, and you know, so
Speaker 5: after a while we said, man, the mic is great
Speaker 5: and it has worn.
Speaker 4: Off his novelty and what have you.
Speaker 5: So we stopped using it and wanted to be spread
Speaker 5: out of all more on stage.
Speaker 2: I always wanted to know.
Speaker 1: When I was twenty something, I had a particular light
Speaker 1: stand that was sort of like a boom mic that
Speaker 1: had two lights on it, right, but it would always
Speaker 1: fall over. Always wondered how sturdy that microphone stand was,
Speaker 1: like if you if one guy were to adjust it
Speaker 1: and throw off the balance of it. Has that microphone
Speaker 1: stand ever fallen over?
Speaker 2: It never on.
Speaker 5: People did a great job of balancing it out with
Speaker 5: the full hits on it, and they hit the support
Speaker 5: system on the h mic that if I should move
Speaker 5: my mind, it would intil the others.
Speaker 8: Star Trek, that's uh yeah, that's uh yeah, okay, it
Speaker 8: must be sturdy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know that in the.
Speaker 2: Mid seventies kind of a little bit after the.
Speaker 1: Song for you House Party Area era, you guys went
Speaker 1: to Atlantic.
Speaker 4: Mm hmmm, well I have bear it back.
Speaker 2: I forget that before it but.
Speaker 5: Between almost album with Atlantic.
Speaker 1: Look, but my question is, uh, how hard was it
Speaker 1: to leave Moti Weave an institution like Motown and I
Speaker 1: know that, you know, the Four Tops went to ABC
Speaker 1: for a second and some ARTI the Jackson's went to CES.
Speaker 2: So everyone was sort of making it.
Speaker 5: I'll tell you something that's very and they didn't show
Speaker 5: this in the over. We still had time on our contract,
Speaker 5: you know. Barry said he got tired of running Motown
Speaker 5: on a day to day basis. It was beginning to
Speaker 5: weigh him down. So he started hiring like Abner who
Speaker 5: used to be with VJ Records. Then Abner left and
Speaker 5: I had this guy named Barney Illis that was running it.
Speaker 5: So we had a meeting, uh with Barney Illis. Uh
Speaker 5: Ral Selson, the attorney Shelly Susan in the past and attempts.
Speaker 5: So mister Ellis, I guess he was pissed off because
Speaker 5: we had the jackson in us had the same attorney
Speaker 5: aide summons a noted entertainment attorney, and he had engineered
Speaker 5: a hell of a contract for the Jackson's to sign
Speaker 5: with Epic. And so when we had the meeting with
Speaker 5: mister Ellis, it was a wind chi effect in the room.
Speaker 4: So he said he took his list brown.
Speaker 5: Soon as y'all get rid of mister Summers, the better
Speaker 5: things to be for you guys around here.
Speaker 4: The room would hush. I said, said, what.
Speaker 5: Soon as you get rid of mister Summers, things to
Speaker 5: be a lot better for you guys around here. I said, Oh, no,
Speaker 5: we're not getting rid of our attorneys, because you guys
Speaker 5: got somebody people around here that we don't like. But
Speaker 5: I bet you won't find them because we don't like them.
Speaker 5: So he pointed down at the end of the table
Speaker 5: to rolh Selston. He said, if abe Summons, Oh, don't
Speaker 5: you answer his call? I said, oh, Susanne sat there,
Speaker 5: Shelley sat there.
Speaker 4: The group. So I said, well, I guess that's the
Speaker 4: end of the meeting. So we left.
Speaker 5: Marvin Gay had to come in and have the same
Speaker 5: meeting with this guy. Susie I Ketta, who was our
Speaker 5: project manager.
Speaker 4: She called me.
Speaker 5: She said, oldest Marvin just left the meeting, cried, I said, well,
Speaker 5: why do Barry have this guy run in his axe
Speaker 5: off like this? So Barry was in a La Costa
Speaker 5: on vacation and he called me in and he said,
Speaker 5: oldis I am so sorry that that went down? Uh,
Speaker 5: what can we do to erectify it? I said, we
Speaker 5: wanna leave Barry silence on the phone. He said, well,
Speaker 5: what kind of money can we get? I say, it's
Speaker 5: not about money, it's about respect. Now we don't wanna
Speaker 5: be here. So he was very sad in here. Then
Speaker 5: he said, alright, I'll work it out and we'll we'll
Speaker 5: get past this. And they worked it out. We left
Speaker 5: Motown and signed with uh uh, we're almost signed with CBS.
Speaker 5: But it was predicated on gambling hoof presenting uh producing us.
Speaker 4: But really yeah whoa yeah.
Speaker 5: Now come, well Kenny and I go back to doing
Speaker 5: the early sixties could be something yeah yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 5: I mean cause CBS was getting ready to get up
Speaker 5: out for a ton of money for us, you know.
Speaker 5: But Kenny told me, he said, oh this after I
Speaker 5: do the Jackson's cause he did, uh the Jackson, enjoy yourself.
Speaker 5: He said, no, I wanna concentrate on my own acts.
Speaker 5: He said, you know, you know, I've always wanted to
Speaker 5: produced attempts, but uh, I'm just gonna concentrate on my axe.
Speaker 4: And I said, I'll be damn. I said, well, Ken,
Speaker 4: I can't.
Speaker 5: Argue with you because if if this is what you
Speaker 5: wanna do, yeah, you gotta do what you have to do.
Speaker 5: And so Jerry Greenberg, who was the president of Atlantic Records,
Speaker 5: I made a wonderful offer and so abelm has worked
Speaker 5: it out and so we went to Atlantic Records.
Speaker 1: But that's how you guys have messed with I'm at
Speaker 1: urgan at all, Like I mean, was he oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know it was glad that okay, So it wasn't
Speaker 1: hands on and yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 5: He really wanted to stand. But Jerry Greenbery was the
Speaker 5: president of Atlantic at the time.
Speaker 1: So you're saying the leadership of Motown in the mid
Speaker 1: seventies sort of caused sourness something.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, truth be told, shame the devil.
Speaker 2: Yeah, wow, I'm learning all these devil monkey. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: learning all.
Speaker 6: I'm glad to know because I was. It's funny. I
Speaker 6: was in watching that series. I was like, so it's
Speaker 6: always been Sunshine and Roses with mister Gordy and the Temptations.
Speaker 4: That just was an odd well, you know for mister
Speaker 4: Gordon and us.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we've we've pretty much always haven't had a wonderful yeah,
Speaker 5: no relationship even.
Speaker 6: Today and even in that part where you know you
Speaker 6: and they introduced Shelley. It's an interesting practice back then
Speaker 6: and I don't think I guess it's not his practice
Speaker 6: now in the music industry where he introduced you guys
Speaker 6: to your manager right back then, right back then.
Speaker 5: At the beginning, Ester Guardy Barry's oldest sister was our manager.
Speaker 5: But I feel wow, I guess he felt.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he was all up in mister yeah.
Speaker 5: Well he telling my family yeah yeah, yeah yeah, but uh,
Speaker 5: I guess he felt as though he needed somebody that
Speaker 5: they could get us on their Sullivan's show when exposed
Speaker 5: us to Yeah, because he got us away from ABC
Speaker 5: Records and we signed with William Morris and that was
Speaker 5: a big bullhur behind us leaving ABC because Shell had well,
Speaker 5: like I said, with some things.
Speaker 4: That went down then. I won't go into too deep,
Speaker 4: but I've had a very interesting career.
Speaker 2: You see a.
Speaker 1: Little you guys returning eighty with uh Howard Power yeah right,
Speaker 1: and he so he he Barry Gordy produced that himself.
Speaker 4: For yes, he did.
Speaker 5: Barry sat on Power because we were at Atlantic and
Speaker 5: Elan de barge excuse me, was the de barge were
Speaker 5: still there? And uh, he said, I knew you guys
Speaker 5: was coming back. I said, really, Bear he said, oh yeah,
Speaker 5: he said, I know. It was just amount of time,
Speaker 5: he said. I had worked there on this song power,
Speaker 5: he said, but I did not have a group over
Speaker 5: here that could pull it off, like I knew the
Speaker 5: tenth Wood because he loved Melvin's power up on that base.
Speaker 4: He loved Melvin's base.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's seven minutes in a row man, that's right, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: how many tastes did that?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Was that a lot of cutting and face thing or
Speaker 1: he just just straight straight through?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 4: Straight through?
Speaker 2: That's hard.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, he got behind that might.
Speaker 5: Close his eyes and he would bawl his fists and
Speaker 5: he was down just like a metronome, right in the pocket.
Speaker 5: And uh, Baris, I knew you guys were coming back,
Speaker 5: And uh we did Power well two hundred thousand immediately
Speaker 5: right out the gate. It was a riot down in Florida.
Speaker 5: The stations across the country got off of it because
Speaker 5: they didn't want the lyrics that.
Speaker 4: Were so powerful in power. Yeah. Yeah, they didn't want
Speaker 4: to incense it to go any further.
Speaker 5: And we were hot, you know, broken because the record
Speaker 5: was moving, it was going. But that incident down in
Speaker 5: Florida made made the disjot gets back up off of
Speaker 5: it because you know, it was tenuous times even at
Speaker 5: that time.
Speaker 2: So was it your idea?
Speaker 1: Uh? I guess in eighty two, and I guess to
Speaker 1: commemorate the by that point, I don't know if it
Speaker 1: was twenty years or thirty. I don't know how long.
Speaker 1: When did you guys, you guys officially start in sixty
Speaker 1: or sixty two?
Speaker 5: Motown? Yeah, sixty one. I have a contract in my
Speaker 5: home that my mother signed.
Speaker 1: Okay sixty one, So okay, so eighty two when the
Speaker 1: reunion alum happens, that's the comer, right, the.
Speaker 2: Whose idea was it? To broker the.
Speaker 4: Our fan base?
Speaker 5: I have a saying that I have since uh and
Speaker 5: been saying quite often a few people around me and say, oldest,
Speaker 5: I see what you mean. We just said the world
Speaker 5: loves us, but we did not love ourself. We would
Speaker 5: let matter what shouldn't matter drugs. I mean, I'm just
Speaker 5: under the way it is drugs.
Speaker 1: So it was the reunion was sort of bittersweet.
Speaker 4: Yeah, when if you guys tour behind that record.
Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, standing on the top. Yeah, we returned. Our
Speaker 5: first date was in Detroit, Michigan at the Fisher Theater.
Speaker 5: David Ruffin came and he said, oldest, I promise you,
Speaker 5: I won't be doing all that crazy ship and I
Speaker 5: was doing before. I just want to get back in
Speaker 5: the group. I s promise you. I'm I'm straet ain't
Speaker 5: gonna cause for the lo I was the last man
Speaker 5: the whole lot, cause Melbourne was saying, come on, bru,
Speaker 5: let's do this year.
Speaker 4: You know, the fans wants.
Speaker 2: You were the last old day. I felt like it
Speaker 2: was your idea.
Speaker 5: Like no, m cause I knew what they were doing,
Speaker 5: even when I had my my own set of temptations. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 5: cause I would see here there from time to time, and.
Speaker 4: Paul he was already gone.
Speaker 5: Because Paul had passed, uh what seventy and seventy one?
Speaker 4: That about.
Speaker 5: But I knew what David was doing, I knew what
Speaker 5: Eddie was doing, and you know, and I I'm not
Speaker 5: sitting here dennegrating these guys cause I love him still.
Speaker 5: But you know, like I said, tell the truth, shame
Speaker 5: the devil. So even Kenny Gamma. We went to Philly,
Speaker 5: and Kenny has always wanted to produce the TEMs and uh,
Speaker 5: Jimmy Bishop was the spearhead of trying to get it together.
Speaker 5: But I guess for whatever reason, Jimmy Bishop bowed out.
Speaker 6: Wow, Jimmy Bishop, that's like legendary name and uh the
Speaker 6: R Philadelphia ru.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So uh anyway, we uh persevered and I said, all right, Melvin,
Speaker 5: let's do this. So we got together when we started rehearsing,
Speaker 5: and we got a very good show together.
Speaker 4: First day. Well we're broken in.
Speaker 5: Down and uh place in Texas to you know the
Speaker 5: customary thing for us go off and break the act
Speaker 5: in off the beaten paths. So when we get on
Speaker 5: the shown u how visible road.
Speaker 4: We'd be tight.
Speaker 5: So when we got to Detroit Fisher Theater, people wrapped
Speaker 5: around the building and like I said, I'm not trying
Speaker 5: to integrate anybody, but time we got there, Ruffling was roughing.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you think that was a fear of his? Like
Speaker 1: what do you what's your assessment of not being able
Speaker 1: to let those demons demons go. I've, at least in
Speaker 1: my particular field, I know that cats that that, uh,
Speaker 1: all they have to do is just step up to
Speaker 1: the plate and do what they gotta do.
Speaker 6: And he's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's kind of But I always just wondered,
Speaker 1: like him not being able to get it together. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously that stems from a fear. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's survivor's guilt.
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's you know.
Speaker 4: Like, of course, you know how everybody can handle success.
Speaker 5: Success can be a strong ath for Djak, you know,
Speaker 5: And it's all.
Speaker 4: I mean on the real set.
Speaker 5: There have been so many different parties for us throughout
Speaker 5: our career that we were in Detroit and I had
Speaker 5: to go off to myself and pinch myself. So I
Speaker 5: don't believe this year ship is really happening. I mean,
Speaker 5: all kind of doors was opening up to us. I
Speaker 5: mean all kinds of adulation, you know, women, you know,
Speaker 5: all kinds of things. You know that if you're not
Speaker 5: strong from within, oh yeah you can go. Yeah you
Speaker 5: know so, but we y all handle success differently.
Speaker 6: But you also you always you mentioned like your mom
Speaker 6: signed your first contract, like you had a foundation. Yeah,
Speaker 6: And I know, briefly in the series they mentioned like
Speaker 6: David he said he was like raised by a pimp
Speaker 6: and like he had all so in that foundation. And
Speaker 6: a lot of y'all had some good like even Melvin
Speaker 6: you can tell had like the foundation his mother was yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but the Ruffian did.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 5: He had had a very sordid life, you know, in
Speaker 5: the sense of uh yeah, uh little They called him
Speaker 5: at first little David Bush, yeah, because he was uh
Speaker 5: living with this guy named uh Eddie Bush, and so
Speaker 5: he took David under his arm wings and called him
Speaker 5: a little David Bush. And David had about six or
Speaker 5: seven singles before uh he joined the Thames and uh
Speaker 5: I would see him at various record houses. And the
Speaker 5: brother was a cold piece of work, though I mean
Speaker 5: in the good sense. I mean David Ruffan throw that
Speaker 5: microphone up, spin around, dropped to his knees, and as
Speaker 5: the microphone came, what's coming down, He'd grab it and
Speaker 5: going into his ay. So one day he said, oh this,
Speaker 5: I wanna sing with your group. And I was surprised
Speaker 5: because they said, wait, wait, say back that train up.
Speaker 5: Said again, and he said, I wanna sing with your group.
Speaker 5: I said, boy, if you were to join us, we'd
Speaker 5: really be something else certain. And he knew that we
Speaker 5: had a very strong reputation in Detroit as far as
Speaker 5: the group and doing what we do. And uh, so
Speaker 5: he joined the group in nineteen well sixty three when
Speaker 5: he started hanging with us.
Speaker 4: So it was six you know at the time.
Speaker 5: Because their Eddie, Paul, Melvin, Uh, David and and no
Speaker 5: Al and then David and we used to close the
Speaker 5: show would shout and uh, we're at this place called
Speaker 5: Chapis Lounge. And as we closed, they kept calling for
Speaker 5: us to come back. So we went back two more
Speaker 5: times and the third time, Uh they kept calling and
Speaker 5: uh Al said, Man, we gotta go back. They keep
Speaker 5: calling us. So Paul said, man, what we gonna do.
Speaker 5: We can't keep going back there clothing with sh out.
Speaker 5: We've done it two times, you know, we gotta let
Speaker 5: it go. Al was drinking and uh when Paul said no,
Speaker 5: we can't go back, m Al said, and malf I'll
Speaker 5: hit you with this ball right an A. I was
Speaker 5: the only one that could could listen that I Al
Speaker 5: would listen to. I was just a little bit off
Speaker 5: time because when I I could read Al's eyes, his
Speaker 5: ass eyes would get that kind of focused thing. I said,
Speaker 5: And by the time I tried to grab his arm
Speaker 5: right across Paul's note, I came out the club and
Speaker 5: leaned up against the door, came out of the dressing
Speaker 5: room leaning up against the door, and Eddie Melvin and
Speaker 5: David Smith was wrong, was wrong? They saw the look
Speaker 5: that I had on my face. I said, Al just
Speaker 5: opened up Paul's face. But check this out. Took Paul
Speaker 5: to the hospital. I said, well, I'm gonna have to
Speaker 5: let Al go. I mean, Paul, were gonna have to
Speaker 5: let Al go? And no, no, don't don't do that.
Speaker 5: I feel we got we getting ready to make it.
Speaker 5: So I'm not gonna have that kind of fighting. And
Speaker 5: I said, I we can have disagreements, but I just
Speaker 5: thought his eyes was gone cause he hid him until
Speaker 5: the day Paul died. He had a scar right across
Speaker 5: the bridge his nose. M So we were at the Fox,
Speaker 5: and you know, like I said, Paul was the one
Speaker 5: that started us to be noted piocography. So Paul and
Speaker 5: Melbourne did this and moved where they would jump down
Speaker 5: and do the see the place that the fox went crazy?
Speaker 5: So I said, hey, hell, come on, man, let's get
Speaker 5: a piece of the action. And all said, now, no,
Speaker 5: we're gonna stay back here, we the pretty boys. And
Speaker 5: that's when I said, gotta let him go. Yep, gotta
Speaker 5: let him go. And when he came off, I said,
Speaker 5: you gotta go. Man entered David Ruffit and that's when
Speaker 5: the hot, the tempts, you know, the not attempts became
Speaker 5: uh well we are.
Speaker 1: Was there any interaction with uh EX members while they
Speaker 1: were on their solo ten years, like did you guys
Speaker 1: feel like a certain way about keep on trucking or
Speaker 1: or any of David ruff and stuff in the solar
Speaker 1: period or even oh.
Speaker 5: Well, I I was happy to see that David and
Speaker 5: Eddie were able to still do you know, because very
Speaker 5: talented guys. Now my whole world ended. That was originally
Speaker 5: written for the Thames. Okay, but Norman Whitfield, not Norman
Speaker 5: uh Harvey Fuqaha and Johnny Bristol. They could never get
Speaker 5: it to us because Norman Whitfield was h stringer hits,
Speaker 5: stringer hits. So when David left, they put it on
Speaker 5: David and that's the Originals, that's doing the background on
Speaker 5: my whole world ended? And uh, well, Eddie. You know
Speaker 5: I knew Eddie would always be successful because he was
Speaker 5: such a unique uh talent saying wise, so Frank Wilson
Speaker 5: when he did tr uh keep on trucking and book
Speaker 5: it down. You know Edie was very very uh success
Speaker 5: uh successful.
Speaker 1: Who in in your career as far as production is concerned,
Speaker 1: You guys worked with everyone from the corporation to Normal
Speaker 1: Waitfield to Rick James, Rick James al McKay, yeah, the
Speaker 1: Fire and all his cats, even what Benny Madeena even
Speaker 1: worked on the Reunion record.
Speaker 2: You ever seen his name? Who?
Speaker 1: What is your what is your preferred? Not effective as
Speaker 1: far as who brought us the most hits? But who
Speaker 1: was your favorite producer to work with? As far as
Speaker 1: like who really understood the group? Who was pleasant to
Speaker 1: work with?
Speaker 5: I would have to say Smoke it first, Okay, Smoking
Speaker 5: band group singer. Smoking was always organized when he would
Speaker 5: bring us whatever song, the way you do the things
Speaker 5: you do my girls, since I lost my baby, he
Speaker 5: left the background harmonies up to us. He would show
Speaker 5: us the basic part of the song. But Smoking was
Speaker 5: always organized, easy, to, you know, work for record, because
Speaker 5: when we did My Girl, how that came about, he
Speaker 5: came and saw us at the twenty grand, a noted
Speaker 5: club and d Detroit, And after the show he came
Speaker 5: back and he was marveling on how great we were,
Speaker 5: and he looked at us, and then he looked at David.
Speaker 5: He said, I have a song for you and show
Speaker 5: us being young, dum full of you know what. He said, Man,
Speaker 5: bring it on. We can sing anything. And we came
Speaker 5: here to the Apollo and we Smoking them our headline.
Speaker 5: We were co stars and field access on that. So
Speaker 5: in between the shows we would rehearse with Smoking and
Speaker 5: went back to Detroit after rehearsing with him for My Girl,
Speaker 5: and he put the background and the leason, and when
Speaker 5: Paul Riser came and added the strings and horns, Smoker
Speaker 5: was sitting at the console, you know, working the boys.
Speaker 5: And I said, Smoking, I don't know how big a
Speaker 5: record this is gonna become, but I think we got
Speaker 5: one on our hands. The record was recorded that fall
Speaker 5: of sixty four. They released it December twenty eighth, nineteen
Speaker 5: sixty four. We were at the Apollo February nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 5: Barry sent us a telegram congratulating us. It's number one
Speaker 5: sold over me in records. The Beatles sent us a
Speaker 5: telegram congratulating us. And I still have those uh telegrams
Speaker 5: at home now. But I always think back then, I said,
Speaker 5: I knew this song was gonna be something. I knew
Speaker 5: the song was good at at the you know, with
Speaker 5: the essence of us. But when Paul Riser added the
Speaker 5: stringer and the horns.
Speaker 4: It gave it a whole nother daylight and true enough.
Speaker 5: When we do that song today, it's like people growing
Speaker 5: up out of the ground like trees.
Speaker 4: They just started to stand up.
Speaker 5: And we made the mistake, like years ago, record did
Speaker 5: what it was gonna do. So Paul was in charge
Speaker 5: of the rundown. He said, well, we can take my
Speaker 5: Girl out of it. Did what it's gonna do. So
Speaker 5: we took it out and we did the show. Quest y'all,
Speaker 5: they call us every name except the child of God,
Speaker 5: so we will that is, I tell the guys even today,
Speaker 5: I said, there are song, certain songs we can never
Speaker 5: ever take out. My girl just my imagination. Ain't too
Speaker 5: proud to be can't get next to you. Papa was
Speaker 5: a rolling Stone losing you now, treat it like a lady.
Speaker 5: So like we have a new record album out now,
Speaker 5: and so I'm tasked with and the hell I'm going
Speaker 5: to do because we only have a.
Speaker 4: Four hours show?
Speaker 2: Man, how long is.
Speaker 1: The average hour and a half to pack all this
Speaker 1: hour and a half? I mean that's with with banter
Speaker 1: in between and non just.
Speaker 6: One hook, right, like, just go to one hook and
Speaker 6: then go to the next song.
Speaker 4: Well we got yeah, no, we work it our way.
Speaker 4: We well, like, ain't you proud? We do all of
Speaker 4: ain't you proud? We do all of my girl and
Speaker 4: the what you do?
Speaker 6: Uh?
Speaker 5: Fortunately, you know, we try not to never cheat our
Speaker 5: fans because they paid their money to see the show.
Speaker 5: So but uh yeah, you know I want to half.
Speaker 5: You know, we try and insert as much as we
Speaker 5: can so they can say I'm still jumping around you
Speaker 5: after all these just switched, That's what they're saying now,
Speaker 5: because we just did a big show in uh outside
Speaker 5: of Maryland, and it was packed there and I have
Speaker 5: been getting calls by man and the most amazing thing.
Speaker 5: But the seold is still up there, keeping up with
Speaker 5: the rest of I said, I'm keeping up with them.
Speaker 6: Right, Yo, what do you say that? Like the young
Speaker 6: artists who you know, there are some artists who maybe
Speaker 6: two albums that are tied of doing their song that
Speaker 6: was the big hid in it.
Speaker 5: Any time you have fans, that's been the heart earned
Speaker 5: money to come see you. And you're gonna tell I'm tired. Oh,
Speaker 5: we don't want to do that. Uh, then you should
Speaker 5: leave it alone.
Speaker 6: I want to do all my new stuff.
Speaker 4: They should leave the get out the business.
Speaker 6: That's what we think too when we're in the audience.
Speaker 5: But you know, see, yeah, well I'm an artist and
Speaker 5: I'm telling them that's the attitude you have.
Speaker 4: Get out of the business.
Speaker 5: Paper spend their hard earned money in the cee these
Speaker 5: songs and you don't want to do them because you're
Speaker 5: tired doing them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I want to use the N word of please.
Speaker 1: How uh of the groups that you guys have inspired,
Speaker 1: especially the seventies, onslaught of groups everyone from Blue Magic to.
Speaker 2: Dynamics is periods.
Speaker 1: Well, I was sticking in the seventies, but I mean
Speaker 1: even even well, I mean well yeah, just as at least.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, hang on, because the thing is is
Speaker 2: that I.
Speaker 1: Feel like when it's twenty years down the line and
Speaker 1: it's someone young, then you're more willing to accept like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I influenced them.
Speaker 2: Okay, get where you go.
Speaker 1: But how did you guys feel like with the onslaught
Speaker 1: of all the seventies groups that are based on you guys,
Speaker 1: And I mean like all those groups the choice for
Speaker 1: the champments, Yeah, enchantment, like just all those groups that
Speaker 1: have the same breakdown a falsetto guy, I have a bathroom.
Speaker 2: Guy, did you guys feel a certain way or.
Speaker 5: You know, as a compliment, you know, well, and when
Speaker 5: you sit I mean, I tell you all the way today.
Speaker 5: When I watched Bruno Mars when he had he did
Speaker 5: the Super Bowl a couple of years ago, I saw
Speaker 5: three important elements in his show James Brown, Michael Jackson
Speaker 5: and the temptation. Now he's here in the twenty first century,
Speaker 5: so our influence reached from now all the way back
Speaker 5: then runs the gamut. And when I have, uh, I
Speaker 5: see somebody that's doing us, I said, Okay, I I
Speaker 5: liked him cause the tempters influenced them. You know, so
Speaker 5: you can't do nothing but take it as a uh
Speaker 5: a compliment.
Speaker 4: You guys.
Speaker 2: Cover Bruno on the New record right.
Speaker 4: Uh yeah, we did one of his homes. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh huh and remember the time, right uh yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: remember yeah.
Speaker 4: Uh well remember the time I tell you when I.
Speaker 5: Got the list and they said, well, just pick out
Speaker 5: what you want uh to do for the new album.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 5: Mike had invited me down to the studio when he
Speaker 5: was recording. Remember the time, and him and I were
Speaker 5: in the uh his uh trailer talking you know, and
Speaker 5: uh when they said Mike ready for you. But him
Speaker 5: and I were sitting in his trailer talking about days
Speaker 5: of yo because UH ain't table what brought back to
Speaker 5: mind because we were talking about we were in Chicago
Speaker 5: and uh Jesse Jackson had uh yeah, and they hit
Speaker 5: the ten of us on stage, so uh when I
Speaker 5: guess the girl said, oh oh they getting ready to
Speaker 5: come off the stage. All these women and girls started
Speaker 5: coming to get on the stage. So one of the
Speaker 5: security guys, what are we gonna do to protect these guys?
Speaker 5: There's ten of them. Somebody said get a U haul truck.
Speaker 5: They got a U haul truck. They put the ten
Speaker 5: of us in there with security and uh it was
Speaker 5: pitch black in then.
Speaker 4: But Mike said, where's oldis?
Speaker 5: Where's ODIs and somebody cut the light on inside the
Speaker 5: truck and I said, Mike, Mike, I'm right here. I
Speaker 5: never will forget the look that he had in his
Speaker 5: eyes of love, now, min you. He didn't ask about
Speaker 5: his brothers, he didn't ask about the other towns.
Speaker 4: Where's oldest?
Speaker 5: And I said, I'm right here, Mike, I'm right here.
Speaker 5: And he looked up there and he had the damn
Speaker 5: this little I love you look in his eyes. So
Speaker 5: but I was there at the uh uh taping of
Speaker 5: remembering the time. So when I saw it, I said,
Speaker 5: oh no, we gotta do remember the time because it
Speaker 5: gave me that kind of remembrance that's so cool.
Speaker 1: In your in your entire catalog, if you could just
Speaker 1: what what to you is your three personal quintessential favorites
Speaker 1: and in the Temptations.
Speaker 4: Catalog right out the gate, my girl.
Speaker 1: So even though you performed it every day of your life, and.
Speaker 5: That's you, that one uh I had saying too proud
Speaker 5: to beg because Norman brought that track to my house
Speaker 5: because we all lived in Detroit, and uh I said, man,
Speaker 5: the track is ooh you know, so uh ain't too proud.
Speaker 5: It would be the second one. You know, I'm gonna
Speaker 5: temptation fan. I could go longer than three, but you
Speaker 5: get only pick three. Just my imagination.
Speaker 1: What okay, what one under the radar song that I
Speaker 1: was gonna ask that? Yeah, never really made it, like
Speaker 1: a favorite of yours. That didn't make it, Like when
Speaker 1: you think that deserves a second look, that didn't get
Speaker 1: a shot the first time.
Speaker 5: Now, this is one I really enjoy listening at. And
Speaker 5: it was a guy that worked at Motown named Steve McKeeva.
Speaker 5: Steve yes, yeah, okay, oh yeah, he said, oldest, that
Speaker 5: elevated eyes.
Speaker 4: I said, really, I said, I've always liked that.
Speaker 2: Your elevator eyes. That's a whole I work in thirty rocks.
Speaker 2: That's hr we get sent to the principal office for elevator.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, Well, young lady, she's since passed.
Speaker 5: She was a forensic psychologist and her and I were
Speaker 5: talking and she said, older said, have you ever heard
Speaker 5: of the term elevated eyes? I said, hell, oh no,
Speaker 5: I ain't never heard of that. And she said, well,
Speaker 5: if you are working in the blue collar field and
Speaker 5: a young lady walked by and you be to my now, baby,
Speaker 5: you show oh excuse me, and go and continue where
Speaker 5: she can go to the human resources.
Speaker 2: H yes, exactly your job. Wow, we're not alone. There
Speaker 2: was something that we just made up.
Speaker 5: But what made me really say, oh, okay, you're not
Speaker 5: the only one. Uh Oprah had a forensic psychologists on
Speaker 5: our show and I said the same thing. She said, No,
Speaker 5: I've never I said, I don't feel like boo to
Speaker 5: fool any if over he heard and uh, I said,
Speaker 5: you know what, Kathy, I'm al write a song called
Speaker 5: Elevated Eyes and young lady wrote me text me and
Speaker 5: she said, older, you need to do something with that
Speaker 5: Elevated Eyes. So that would be one that I would
Speaker 5: really and it would kind of be apropos what's what's
Speaker 5: happening with the me too?
Speaker 2: Thing?
Speaker 5: Because this song tells about her. You really you can
Speaker 5: see you, but you don't trespass.
Speaker 4: You just let know she.
Speaker 5: Looks nice and peripheral. Yeah, uh huh, but you know
Speaker 5: you have to watch that. But that one I told her,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna still work that out and find somebody to
Speaker 5: do it because the lyrics and the track, you know,
Speaker 5: it's tight.
Speaker 6: Now's the time it is.
Speaker 1: Let's see my last question, how come you didn't sing more,
Speaker 1: you know what, prominently on the lead.
Speaker 5: Of course, your on point, because I was the lead
Speaker 5: singer at when we were the Distance.
Speaker 4: Okay, because Billy my valet.
Speaker 5: He went on the internet and found Open your Heart
Speaker 5: and what else did it? It was another song that
Speaker 5: I did. But my thinking was when we got to
Speaker 5: Motown and you know, because it wasn't like, uh, I
Speaker 5: couldn't sing lead on it. I just say, man, I
Speaker 5: don't ever care who sing as long as we make
Speaker 5: this money.
Speaker 4: And it wasn't like.
Speaker 5: Wait, wait, bro, you're getting paid more because she sang lead.
Speaker 5: Oh hell no, I want to sing lead. So it
Speaker 5: wasn't that kind of thing.
Speaker 6: Oh, everybody got the same I was wonder about that.
Speaker 4: No excuse me, No, no, everybody got the same pay.
Speaker 6: But then that's weird because since you were found a member,
Speaker 6: and then so Melvin. But regardless it's a new guy whatever,
Speaker 6: we all the same.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's where it was at. Yeah, and uh but
Speaker 5: Tom Bell. We did an album with Tom Bell and
Speaker 5: he recorded us and I was just hormming something and
Speaker 5: Tom stopped. He said, you the one I should be recording.
Speaker 5: I said, really, why you said that? He said, I
Speaker 5: like your voice. I said, oops, too late. You know,
Speaker 5: we had you know, finished recording. But my attitude has
Speaker 5: always been like, hey man, I just wanted us to
Speaker 5: make it. And you know the Mico didn't get hung
Speaker 5: up on the thing.
Speaker 4: Well I got the sing lead. I'm the group leader.
Speaker 4: I found this shit stuff. You know. No, it wasn't
Speaker 4: that with me.
Speaker 5: Let us all make money and be successful and uh
Speaker 5: that's it, you know. But uh, I guess I never
Speaker 5: did really make any real bones about it.
Speaker 6: Just did you make What about the writing process because
Speaker 6: you said earlier on you wrote some songs for the Temptations,
Speaker 6: But did it continue on because it sounds like okay.
Speaker 5: Okay, yeah on our latest album, Temptations all the time
Speaker 5: I did along with two other guys waiting on you.
Speaker 4: Elevate Eyes, treata like the Lady.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, so no, I love writing when I can,
Speaker 5: you know, give a chance to do it. So yeah,
Speaker 5: that's my other thing of doing it.
Speaker 1: Well, I know you have another three hundred years in you, so.
Speaker 4: I love you U. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm all. Like I said, I'm gonna ride the
Speaker 5: health the horse. When I get off the horse, it'll
Speaker 5: be ball.
Speaker 1: And that's how we have to end it. Thank you
Speaker 1: very much for coming on Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you you have love Boss Bill, Sugar Steve.
Speaker 1: What's our particular and unpaid Bill? This is Quest Love
Speaker 1: of Quest Love Supreme. We will see you on the
Speaker 1: next go around.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Course Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic
Speaker 1: episode was produced by.
Speaker 2: The Teen at Pandora.
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