The Temptations' Otis Williams - the Formative Years....and he's returning to the UK

By Seamus McGarvey

In November 2000 and late-2020 I interviewed Otis Williams, currently the only surviving member of the original Temptations, and due to tour the UK again this September - October alongside The Four Tops (see https://www.thepublicityconnection.com/thetemptations for details). We spoke about the early years, preceding The Temptations, and these were his memories.

'I was born in Texas, a strong gospel background... I used to listen to quartets and I used to be part of the choir when I was a little fellow down in Texas and I was raised by my grandmother.’ The original Temptations ‘used to sit around and sing gospel songs like 'Oh Mary Don't You Weep'... So I did sing with a gospel quartet if you wanna think of The Temptations as a gospel quartet in the way they harmonised things (laughs)!' Otis was always a solid bass singer: ‘I grew up appreciating the gospel singers like Sam Cooke, The Pilgrim Travellers, The Soul Stirrers, The Harmonizing Four, The Swan Silvertones, Mahalia Jackson... and their bass singers... and then when I moved from Texas to Detroit, I started hearing the other pop singers of the day like Nat 'King' Cole, Roy Hamilton, Little Richard, James Brown and different vocal groups... and the bass singers in the vocal groups.'

"Gospel ‘was very important because we were all Southern boys – I’m from Texas, David [Ruffin] was from Mississippi, Paul [Williams] was from Birmingham AL, Eddie [Kendricks] was from Union Springs, AL, Melvin [Franklin] was from Montgomery AL, so there was a lotta guys from the South, and especially back then because you was raised listening to great gospel singers. And when The Temps got together, a lotta times we would start off our rehearsals by singing great gospel songs, and then onto some of the popular songs of the day.’

Regarding their repertoire, ‘‘Do You Love Me’ by The Contours was originally written for The Temps, but Melvin, Eddie, Paul, Al [Elbridge ‘Al’ Bryant] and myself were at The King Solomon Baptist Church [in Detroit] watching The Dixie Hummingbirds, The Harmonizing Four and a few other name groups, and they were singing, and they had the choreography... So the next day we come up from town and they were asking us where we were because [label owner] Berry Gordy Jr. was looking for us… we said, ‘We were at church, listening to some great gospel groups’, and they said, ’Well, you know, Berry wrote ‘Do You Love Me’ for The Temps, but when he couldn’t find you he gave it to The Contours’.’ Despite missing the session, ‘we were out there watching the great gospel groups doin’ their thing, that’s why we were steeped with that gospel singing, and some of the choreography… the influence from the church.’

In terms of vocal groups, 'I started out as a doo-wopper, on the street corner, in the street-lights, in the hallways, any place you could get a good echoey sound… Doo-Wop was really important… just about any street corner you would go to in Detroit you would find a vocal group singing Doo-Wop. That was the growing-up process of singers in just about any city – Chicago, New York, Detroit – any big city had a lot of Doo-Wop groups goin’ – that was a given.’

"One of the earliest groups Otis helped form was The Siberians who cut a couple of sides, 'Pecos Kid' and 'All Of My Life', for Detroit deejay Senator Bristol Bryant around 1958. ‘Everything at that time was so helter-skelter… we didn’t last long, nothing too much happened.’ Re ‘Pecos Kid’, they ‘did a take of it, it got a little action but it didn’t jump off. It was during the time when a lot of those novelty types of records was being popularised… but it didn’t really do anything.’

Otis recalled doing ‘a lot of little menial stuff that didn’t take us nowhere. The only thing that took us to any kind of popularity or notoriety was when we went with [label owner] Johnnie Mae Matthews.’ Otis formed The El Domingoes with Melvin Franklin and Richard Street, signing with Matthews’ Northern label as The Distants and recorded 'Come On' [co-written by Otis]/ 'Always' and, with Morty Craft as producer, 'Open Your Heart'/ 'All Right', all of which were released nationally on Warwick Records. They did score a Detroit hit with ‘Come On’, ‘by Richard Street and The Distants… it was such a popular record in the Detroit area that it brought us to Berry Gordy’s attention.’

Lacking national distribution, Johnnie Mae ‘made a deal with Warwick Records… it helped us get our name known… Eddie Kendricks told me that in Birmingham, AL, ‘Man, they used to play The Distants’ record all the time… ‘ - made us feel good.’ Johnnie Mae ‘signed us… we got a hit’, and ‘she started makin’ money, and when I asked her about royalties because I wrote ‘Come On’… she didn’t want to give me any… that’s when we parted ways.’ Berry later ‘saw my group perform… at St. Stephen's Community Centre. And I came off because he came in with The Miracles then, and I'm standing alongside him watching The Miracles. We had to go to the Men's Room and he said 'Come and see me, I'm starting my own record company', gave me his business card and history was made.'

As regards the group’s name, ‘We tried ourselves as The Elgins’, a name already in use: ‘Billy Mitchell, a guy who used to work [at Motown], said ‘What about The Temptations?’ I jumped up and said, ‘I like that!’’ The others agreed, ‘that was 1961.’ As The Temptations they scored a range of chart hits, Pop and R&B, from 'My Girl' through 'It's Growing' to 'Get Ready’ and more… at that time we were just singing whatever was brought to us, and bein' part of Motown… whether it was Smokey Robinson or Norman Whitfield, or Berry Gordy himself, we would sing... whoever would bring us the song and Berry said, 'Record it'.' The rest is record and R&B history.

Seamus McGarvey.

The top photo was taken on stage in 2018. The backstage photo above in 2012 and the one below in 2012.