Bashe Patricia Romanowski - Temptations (Updated)

With their insistent vocal harmonies, snappy suits, and split-second stage choreography, the Temptations carved out a soulful slice of pop music history in the 1960s and early 1970s as one of the all-time great examples of the Motown sound.... As might be expected, the road to the top wasnt as smooth as the Temptations trademark harmonies. Group cofounder Williams hits the low points and the magic moments in this straightforward account of life as a Temptation, onstage and off.

Chicago Tribune

Temptations is a significant addition to the growing canon of books relating to the phenomenon of Motown Records.

NELSON GEORGE, Billboard, and author of Blackface

Temptations is the poignant and well-written story of the group through the eyes of Otis Williams, one of its original members.

Essence

This book is a must for Motown maniacs.... Totally delightful.

Inside Books

Williams writes about womanizing, booze, drugs, and the other temptations.... [He] candidly discusses the groups falling out with Motown Records and its love/hate relationship with Motown emperor Berry Gordy. The singer also provides insights into Motowns magic.

Minneapolis Star Tribune

OTIS
WILLIAMS

WITH

PATRICIA
ROMANOWSKI

All chart positions referred to are from Billboard magazine and were compiled from Joel Whitburns Record Research, a series of books available through Record Research, P.O. Box 200, Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin 53501; www.recordresearch.com

Photographs 19, 14, 21, 22, 3032, 3539, 42, 43, 4549, 51, 53, and 57 are from the personal collection of Otis Williams.

First Cooper Square Press edition 2002

This Cooper Square Press paperback edition of Temptations is an unabridged republication of the edition first published in New York in 1988, with the addition of a new chapter. It is reprinted by arrangement with the authors.

Copyright 1988 by Otis Williams
Updated edition copyright 2002 by Otis Williams

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

Published by Cooper Square Press
A Member of the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group
200 Park Avenue South, Suite 1109
New York, New York 10003-1503
www.coopersquarepress.com

Distributed by National Book Network

The previous edition of this book was cataloged by the Library of Congress as follows:

Williams, Otis.

Temptations / Otis Williams with Patricia Romanowski.1st Fireside ed.

p. cm.

A Fireside book.

Includes index.

1. Temptations (Musical group) 2. Rock musiciansUnited StatesBiography. I. Romanowski, Patricia. II. Title.

ML421.T43W5 1989

782.42166'092'2DC20

CIP

MN

ISBN 978-0-8154-1218-2

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.481992.

Manufactured in the United States of America.

Id like to thank Shelly Berger, Billie Jean Bullock, Cherie Ann Dobbins of Star Direction; Marilyn Ducks-worth, Stacy Creamer, Suzee Ikeda, Steve Martin, Robb Hogan, Howard Flash Jackson, my Aunt Lucille Woods, and Uncle Wade Woods; Brandy F. Davis for watching over my father, Edgar Little; my brother, Allan Little, and his family; Abe Somer and Jill Berliner, my attorneys; Cholly and Mae Atkins; Maurice King, Fred Moultrie, Edwin Lombard, Joe G. DOliveira, my business managers; DAnza Bringier, Linda Penn, Bruceaud Terry Taylor, Ann and Willie Mitchell, Bill Tannen, Annie B. Cain, and Patty Romanowski and Phil Basheyoure both wonderful. And my loving wife, Goldie, and daughter, Elanda, The Temptations, and my loving son, Otis Lamont, may you rest in peace.

OTIS WILLIAMS

Id like to thank Miller London at Motown Records, Bill Hathaway at Record Research, and the guys at Strider Records in New York and Memory Lane Records on Long Island for helping me compile the discography. Among the friends whose support was invaluable, Id like to single out Elisa Petrini, Nelson George, Mitchell and Rana Schneider, Larry Geller and Joel Spector, Gypsy da Silva, and Sarah Lazin. My husband, Philip Bashe, as always, has a special place here.

Shelly Berger, Billie Bullock, and Karen Fisk at Star Direction smoothed the way. And Shelly and Stacy Creamer offered countless valuable suggestions and the kind of encouragement every writer should have.

Finally, very special thanks to the Temptations, for being. And to Otis, for his friendship, honesty, and trust, all of which made this assignment a dream come true.

PATRICIA ROMANOWSKI

TEMPTATIONS

In 1986 I stood on the empty stage of Detroits Fox Theater, the last of the citys grand old movie palaces and the only one to have been renovated. With its over five thousand seats stretching back between ornate plaster walls and glowing under the refurbished chandeliers, it struck me as a place, maybe the only place, that time forgot. Of course, I knew that these seats were not really the ones I sat in, surrounded by friends, all up and screaming for Frankie Lymon or Jackie Wilson. Theyd been cleaned up, probably reupholstered, but they could have been the same. Coming in through the old stage door, I recalled all the hours Id spent outside it, hoping to catch a glimpse of one of my idols, maybe one of the Cadillacs, or a beautiful woman, like Faye Adams.

They might have changed the stage, but not enough that I couldnt close my eyes for a moment and feel the rhythmic vibrations of our dance steps as we strut and glide through our first Motortown Revue or Christmas Show in the early sixties. Out beyond the edge of the stage I can see only a hundred or so illuminated faces, all smiling, all laughing, all bobbing in time to the music. Our music. Sometimes it feels like they might be the only people there, but then a thunderous roar reminds me that there must be hundreds, probably thousands just like them in the darkness. Beside me three of us swoop and spin behind a shining four-headed chrome microphone stand, while a fifth stands off somewhere to our left. If its Eddie Kendricks, maybe hes singing Just My Imagination, making the girls down front swoon. If its David Ruffin, in a lightning flash hes sent his microphone flying skyward, turned, done his split, come up, caught the mike, and is heading down into the crowd. Every beat of every song prompts a move, a look, a note that comes so naturally, I might have been doing it all my life.

In those moments when this is all I think, when the adrenaline runs so high that it feels like a drug, times stood still. This is the Apollo in 1966, or the Copacabana in 1967, maybe an English television studio in 1965, a little makeshift stage in a school gymnasium in 1963. And these are four of my very best friends, my brothers, all parties to a pact that says we will never part, that weDavid Ruffin, Eddie Kendricks, Melvin Franklin, Paul Williams, and Ialways will be the Temptations. After a couple more numbers on any given night, no one but me knows that mixed in with the sheets of sweat that pour down my face there are tears.