‘The world loved the Temptations but they didn’t love themselves’
WHEN THEY SOLD out the LA Forum, Motown legends The Temptations found their soulful harmonies and slick choreography proved a little too tempting for some of the 17,500-strong crowd. “The girls started coming towards us,” Otis Williams – the group’s only surviving original member – tells me with a chuckle.
“Eddie Kendricks and myself were positioned at one side of the stage, and our only escape was over a fence. They couldn’t catch me – one leap and I was over. But Eddie didn’t make it. He came back to the dressing room half naked…they had stripped him down to just his shorts.”
That concert, in Inglewood, California, was in the summer of 1968, by when “the Temps” had notched up a string of sublime hits including My Girl, Get Ready, and Ain’t Too Proud To Beg.
If it was wild in the audience, it was a lot crazier backstage. Otis, 81, recalls an incident in mid-1963 involving original member Elbridge “Al” Bryant.
“We were playing south west Detroit and the audience kept calling us back.
“After the second encore, Paul Williams said ‘We can’t go back for a third, we can’t keep going back on’.
“Then Al, who’d been drinking, used the f-word. He said, ‘You can’t tell me what to do’.
“I’m good at reading people and I could see he was on the verge, but, before I could grab his hand, he smashed a beer bottle into Paul’s face.
“We got Paul to hospital. I said, ‘We’ve got to let Al go’.” Mild-mannered Paul talked the group out of sacking Bryant, but after an altercation onstage at that year’s Motown Christmas party there was no way back.
Al died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1975.
Gifted baritone David Ruffin, who replaced him as lead vocalist, was fired after three years because of drugs, egomania and missed performances. He died addicted to crack cocaine in 1991 aged just 50. Paul took his own life in 1973. Bass singer Melvin Franklin and falsetto Eddie both died in the 90s.
This tragic real-life soul soap opera features in Ain’t Too Proud, a new West End jukebox musical that tells the Temptations’ story warts and all. “The world loved the Temptations but the Temptations didn’t love themselves,” says Otis. “Once drugs came into play, dreams and aspirations became fragmented. I’m thankful to God for being able to withstand it.”
Williams, who says “Temps” now stands for temperance, saw the Tony Award-winning show in Berkley, California.
“I was amazed,” he tells me. “The people around me knew who I was and in the tender moments they were turning and looking at me as I shed tears. I’m still touched when I see it now. It’s a mixture of pain and therapy.”
Especially as one true-life tragedy was the untimely death of his son Lamont in a building site accident.
The script, written by playwright
Dominique Morisseau, was based on Williams’s memoir and includes Ruffin’s abusive relationship with Motown star Tammi Terrell, who died of a brain tumour at 24.
Texas-born Otis flew into London last week to meet the UK cast. “I’m still amazed our story made it into a Broadway hit,” he says.
“A musical. Wow. To come from living with no frills, come to Detroit and have success… it still feels incredible to me.”
No frills is right. Otis (then Otis Miles) was raised by “two wonderful grandmothers steeped in gospel” in Texarkana after his parents split and his mother decamped to Detroit.
“I had to get up and feed the chickens and milk the cow; we had an outhouse…it was basic living. So I appreciate how I live now very much. I thank God every day.” The only music
TIS BEGAN singing on street corners “a lot of groups did back then; we’d sing at parties and ional places.” His group, The Distants, with The Prime to become The Elgins re signed to Berry Gordy’s fledgling n label – “a wonderful, joyous place” – in hanging their name to the Temptations. key Robinson realised their potential, songs for them and producing them. key came up with The Way You Do The You Do while he and The Miracles were down the Pennsylvania turnpike! That became our first hit in 1964.” Later that year Robinson saw them pack out Detroit’s 20 Grand club and came backstage with another song for them.
“He brought us My Girl, our first Number One!” – which became their signature tune.
In 1966, Norman Whitfield took over as their producer. Ain’t Too Proud To Beg and I Could Never Love Another were early fruits of that collaboration.
But when by chance Otis heard Sly And The Family Stone in New York, the Temps gambled on a funkier, psychedelic kind of soul.
The resulting 1969 album Cloud Nine sold more than a million copies and landed the group – and Motown – their first Grammy.
New songs such as Runaway Child, Running Wild, and their 1970 smash hit Ball Of Confusion were more socially aware.
And, as the song says, the band played on…1971 saw Just My Imagination go platinum, then the 1972 classic Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone turned an errant father into a chart-topping triumph.
Throughout the highs and lows, 6ft 2in Otis has remained the glue that held the Temptations together; the one constant. “That was the role God had me play,” he says simply.
“Smokey and Berry Gordy called me ‘the Oak’. I had to keep the Temps solid.” At times, he explains, he had to be “like Henry Kissinger”.
It’s been a sensational ride. Otis cites many highs including a telegram from the Beatles congratulating them on My Girl reaching Number One and being inducted into the
Rock ’n’ Roll Hall Of Fame.
They notched up five Grammys, have their name on the Hollywood walk of fame, had their own TV show, and Williams has 40 gold and platinum albums on the walls of his LA home, nicknamed “The Summit”. Three-timesmarried Otis also dated Patti Labelle and had a fling with the late Florence Ballard of The Supremes. His actress/model daughter Elan, 53, appeared in Seinfeld.
UK audiences mean the world to him. “Every time I come to your beautiful country I’m like Desi Arnaz on the I Love Lucy show, except I don’t say ‘Lucy I’m home’, it’s ‘London I’m home’.
“England always felt like our second home, the fans were and are fantastic.
“I’ve been falling in love with England ever since our first visit in 1964.”
Last October, the Temptations and the Four Tops sold out the O2 Arena. “English audiences are very receptive, they show you their love.”
IN THE 1960s, the five-strong group famously performed with a four-head microphone, with tenor Otis sharing the central mic with David Ruffin. “I gave our first four-headed mic to the Rock
’n’ Roll Hall of Fame and the second to the Motown Museum in Detroit.
“The mic added the ‘Gee’ to the Temptations. At the Apollo, Detroit, the curtains opened and all the audience could see was the four-headed mic and they went crazy over it.
“And when the curtains fully opened we were already in position.”
He still fronts the group, who perform a 75-minute set.
“Certain songs have to be in there. We did a show once without My Girl and they called us every name under the sun.”
Hard work and a “the show must go on” attitude have driven Otis Williams through eight decades. The big man is already thinking about what comes next.
“When you think you’ve got everything, there’s always something else. There’s talk of a Temptations movie. The sky is the limit.
“I’ve been truly blessed.”
Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations is at the Prince Edward Theatre, London W1, ainttooproudmusical.co.uk