Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong
Are here to make right everything that's wrong
Billy Bragg - Levi Stubbs’ Tears [1986]
Twenty years ago I was in a pub talking to a friend and music obsessive called John. We were talking about The Temptations. He said, “Imagine being in the position where you lose David Ruffin as your lead singer…and then you get to replace him with Dennis Edwards!” Few replacements could have been better.
Edwards joined the Temptations in 1968, first singing on Ain’t No Mountain High Enough from the album Diana Ross & the Supremes Join the Temptations. Although Norman Whitefield had been slowly getting involved with The Temptations, producing the odd track [like the fabulous (I Know) I’m Losing You] over the previous few years, 1969 saw the synergy of Edwards joining and Whitfield taking over as producer, allowing them to create some of their most interesting and endless funk.
This stack sees me discuss some of the best songs they released during the fantastic run of albums Cloud Nine [1969], Puzzle People [1969], Psychedelic Shack [1970], Sky's the Limit [1971], Solid Rock [1972], All Directions [1972], Masterpiece [1973] and 1990 [1973]
1969: Gettin’ high…
When Otis Williams suggested to producer Norman Whitfield that the next direction for the band could be like Sly & The Family Stone, although it took a while for Whitefield to warm to the idea, the next phase of The Temptations was born.
Most of these albums are a mix of standard Motown ballads that the band had been producing and the new psychedelic direction Whitfield took them in. Cloud Nine is a great example of this new groove, pushing a relevant anti-drug message from lyricist Barrett Strong [“Needed something to ease my troubled mind…Depressed and down-hearted, I took to Cloud Nine…”] but most importantly melding their voices to a chopping funk groove that keeps at the same hypnotic beat for most of the track, until it explodes as they sing “Up, up and away”.
Motown regularly had multiple artists record the same song, looking for the hit, and as part of this The Temptations recorded their superb version of I Heard It Through the Grapevine. Obviously no match for Marvin Gaye’s but it’s a soulful groove that matches the new funk sound to their voices.
That funk concept was pushed further with over 9 minutes of Run Away Child, Running Wild, a blistering groove telling a tale of the horrors of running away from home. If Cloud Nine was about escaping the challenges of life, Run Away Child, Running Wild was a reminder that you can’t, in fact, do that.
Later that year Whitfield/Strong produced the immense I Can’t Get Next to You. A huge #1 hit song that makes perfect use of the band’s different voices and is one of the best examples of psychedelic funk there is. It’s fascinating how, on the same album, the band would produce their clunky, poor version of Hey Jude, a song weakened by the different voices grabbing at different lines, and the saccharin Little Green Apples. Even under Whitfield’s hand, the band continued to compete for different ideas of what constituted their “sound”. One of their great lesser known songs, Slave, came out at the same time, a powerful story of life in prison driven by the interplay between Eddie Kendricks’ sweet falsetto and Dennis Edwards growl. It’s an updated chain gang song given a funk afterlife and is a joy to listen to.
1970: That’s where it’s at…
There’s an amazing moment at the start of Psychedelic Shack, as we hear a knock and a door creak open. We then hear someone drop the needle onto a record and I Can’t Get Next to You starts up. It’s quite disconcerting at first, hearing the clear snippet of a different song [the first sample?] and then this track bursts into life. It’s another song built around the competing and blending voices of the band. It feels like Whitefield wanted his songs to be built around ensemble: the voices and the band together to create a funk symphony.
As well as an extended freakout on Gladys Knight’s Friendship Train they released the first version of War, Whitfield and Strong’s anti-Vietnam War cry, built around a wailing guitar line and hissing hi-hat. It’s not as bombastic as Edwin Starr’s famous versions, but it still kicks enough of a punch that Motown refused to put it out as a single as they were too concerned about what impact it would have on the band’s popular image. The simple but idealistic chorus line “War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothin'!” is still as powerful now as it was in 1970.
It’s worth mentioning Hum Along and Dance, a track that is virtually instrumental, built around another snapping funk groove and Eddie Kendrick’s wordless singing. Over the years there were concerns that The Temptations were becoming just another “element” on Whitefield’s musical chart, and this is a good example. It’s a great piece of music, but seems strange as a Temptations track.
Of course, 1970 also saw the non-album track Ball of Confusion (That's What the World Is Today), one of the best examples of Whitefield/Strong’s social commentary work. The band’s voices are again used cleverly on this track and the lyrics demonstrate the confusion at the heart of the world:
Evolution, revolution, gun control, the sound of soul
Shooting rockets to the moon, kids growin' up too soon
The groove is pretty straight-forward and it makes for a great tune.
1971: Truly a dream come true…
1971’s Sky’s the Limit is a brilliant album. It was also the last to feature the remarkable falsetto of Eddie Kendrick’s and he is the focal point for all of side one of the record. The record is full of brilliant ballads that suit his sweet voice, like opener Gonna Keep on Tryin' (Till I Win Your Love) and their brittle version of I’m the Exception to the Rule. His standout performance comes with the remarkable Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me). As much as I love the psychedelic work, not everyone did, and Whitefield and Strong brought this track out to show they could still write beautiful ballads. A friend once said to me, “What’s the point of trying to be a songwriter, you’ll never write anything as good as Just My Imagination?”
Whilst ballads had come more to the fore it didn’t stop the creation of superb, dramatic work like the 12 minutes of Smiling Faces Sometimes, a song that would become the signature tune for Whitefield’s next band, The Undisputed Truth. Ungena Za Ulimwengu (Unite the World) is a crunching, crashing funk tune for Dennis Edwards and the bass of Melvin Franklin driven by a screaming harmonica.
My favourite track is Love Can Be Anything (Can't Nothing Be Love But Love), a variation of War but built around a gospel prayer to love. It’s wonderful, bouncing along around a superb repetition of the title line, their voices blending perfectly. It’s one of the best things they ever did but you won’t find it on any “best of” compilations.
1972: People, it does something to my brain…
Solid Rock was the first album after Eddie Kendrick’s had left and Paul Williams had retired due to ill-health (he would die just 18 months later in August 1973). The album introduced replacements, Damon Harris and Richard Street to the band. Opening track Take a Look Around is a country tinged soul track that introduces the new voices to the blend and is a delightful track. Whitfield’s side one experimentation continued though, with seven minutes of Ain’t No Sunshine and over twelve of Stop the War Now. Ain’t No Sunshine is stripped down from the start, building around a repetitive groove for a good two minutes before Wah Wah Watson’s guitar melody and Earl Van Dyke’s piano improvisation take over. Some people didn;t like the focus on instrumentation for this famous vocal groups but I love the way the two elements are tied to gether. This is a great version of Bill Wither’s famous track.
Stop the War Now is even more psychedelic, swirling vocals and that ever present slow build, Melvin Franklin’s deep voice intoning the Lord’s Prayer underneath. The track builds and builds, a hypnotic cymbal line accelerating the song into the first verse. It’s wonderful to hear the track slow down, and echo the lines from the previous year’s War [“What is it good for?”], in a woosy but long coda.
Superstar (Remember How You Got Where You Are) is the other famous track here but I prefer the rapid funk fun of What It Is, perfect for Dennis Edward’s voice.
1972 also saw the stunning Papa Was a Rollin' Stone, the centrepiece of their second album of the year, All Directions. Most people will have heard Papa Was a Rollin' Stone, as part of a funk collection, or on radio somewhere, but nothing prepares you for the full twelve minute track, snaking bass line, beautiful strings and snarling wah wah guitar work, a lone trumpeter picking out sharp lines. It is a masterpiece of music, although one cold argue that this template was becoming repetitive for the band and Whitefield now.
On the same album sits the deeply cool Funky Music Sho' 'Nuff Turns Me On, a version of an Edwin Starr song that let’s the band clap and intertwine their vocal lines, echoing a melody from Sly Stone from time to time. There’s also the wonderfully overwrought Mother Nature, a track not written by Whitefield/Strong but by Nick Zesses and Dino Fekaris, showing they could still do dramatic soul tracks that cried out.
1973: Only the strong survive…
When 1973’s Masterpiece opened with Hey Girl (I Like Your Style) it would have been easy to assume the band were back to focusing on their sweet vocal soul sounds of the sixties, as it sounds like it could be plucked form that era, but it’s followed up wiht the amazing Masterpiece, a song that only features 3 minutes of singing within 13 minutes of funk. This was Whitefield creating music with The Funk Brothers band adding an occasional contribution from The Temptations. Its very much in the style of Isaac Hayes’ long soul tracks, a cool, steady beat puncture by a string driven hook. The vocals jump in over each other during their short interlude, but for the most part it’s a hypnotic groove full of instrumentation and great solos. Barrett Strong had left to pursue his own career by this album, so Whitfield wrote everything. His image also takes up most of the back cover, The Temptations just images floating in his head (his mind?). It’s no wonder Dennis Edwards said, “I just wish we did more vocally on teh album. I just don’t think we did enough.”
The songs, like the title track and the brilliant Plastic Man, have the feel of movies, which was what Whitefield was going for. But he admitted that he “never really confided in them as to what I was doing.” And they only had the energy for one more album together.
That album 1990, may have been recorded as the band and their producer fell out completely, but it still had funk in every corner. The opener, Let Your Hair Down, is superb. With Rose Royce as the backing band it crackles with energy from the start, and makes perfect use of the Temptations’ voices. This is the same with the cool You’ve Got My Soul On Fire, a really underrated funk track everyone should know.
The title track is a bluesy funk track, touching on some of Stevie Wodner’s mid 70s groove, at first, and full of blunt social commentary:
People are asking now
"How can you spend another dollar on the space race
With families at home starving right in front of your face?"
Where is your heart, America?
Perhaps most aptly, the final track on a Whitefield-Temptations album is long. Thirteen minutes of Zoom, opening to quiet music and chatter from the band as they discuss the space race it hits that metronomic groove as Franklin counts down and then they start singing - voices locked together. It’s a mantra-like song, contstant repetition of “zoom” over the laid back groove. A “spectacular production” said Billboard magazine in December 1973, “about a trip to the moon”, but it still throws in a view of society with a gospel call and response.
Everything in mind is higher
(Higher, higher, higher than ever before)
The crime rate is getting
(Higher, higher, higher than ever before)
My taxes are getting
(Higher, higher, higher than ever before)
All the people are getting
(Higher, higher, higher than ever before)
That building, building's
(Higher, higher, higher than ever before)
My music's gonna take you
(Higher, higher, higher than ever before)
The track holds its nerve throughout, never changing tempo, and is a fitting end to the work Norman Whitfield (and Barrett Strong) did with The Temptations.
I think they pretty much managed to wring every last drop of psychedelic funk sweat out of the collaboration - Whitfield continued to work with bands he could control, like The Undisputed Truth and Rare Earth, before creating his own label. The Temptations added a disco touch to their later songs, but they kept elements of the collaboration for a few more years [next album A Song for You, is worth checking out]. For a period of five years Norman Whitefield redefined the sound of the Temptations, and in doing so redefined the sound of psychedelic soul.
Absolutely, without a doubt, my favorite set of Temptations albums. 'All Directions,' 'Masterpiece,' and '1990' in particular, but I love them all. And yes, "You've Got My Soul on Fire" is a funk masterclass!