![]() “All those that have continued to believe in the Temps are why we’re still around.” “I have been with some of the singing-est brothers that God ever created and I’m the last man standing,” he says. And while the road’s not as easy as once it was, he doesn’t plan to stop performing any time soon. To know that we both woke up, and, you know, we got another shot.”Īt least 26 men have been Temptations over time with Williams the sole constant over the decades. “When I wake up and he wakes up, we talk. “I mean, I speak to Otis every single morning,” Berger says. “Closer in a way than my children or my grandchildren. “Otis Williams and Berry Gordy are the two closest people to me in my life,” he says. Shelly paved the way for us to be able to go into those, as we referred to them, smart rooms.”īerger says he’s always felt fortunate to have made the relationships that Motown provided. “But he took us out of that to the Copacabanas, the Aladdin casino, the Las Vegas. “Oh yeah, we had a black belt in doing the chitlin’ circuit,” he says. “But we’ve been able to keep the water clear enough so where you can see the bottom.”īerger had the vision to take the Temptations off the road playing one-nighters in the informal collection of venues in the South and Midwest known as the chitlin’ circuit and into bigger venues for longer residencies, Williams says. “Sometimes that’s hard to do in business, because it can get kind of murky,” he says. The two men built a relationship based on “trust, love and understanding,” Williams says. We never signed a contract, which is a rarity.” “And now here it is 50 years or so later and he’s still the man,” Williams says. Around 1966, though, the Motown head asked Berger to take over management of both the Temptations and the Supremes. In the earliest years, the Temptations were managed by Berry Gordy’s sister Esther Gordy, Williams says. “They are something that you couldn’t dream up.” “Well, that’s who they are,” Berger says. “If you were doing a movie about the Temptations and you went to Central Casting and said, “OK, give me five guys who are great looking, who are six feet tall or more, who can sing better than anybody, who can dance better than anybody, that’s what I want to be a group called the Temptations,” he says. To Berger, there’s never been another group like the Temps, as the group informally is known. “I’m just happy that God chose Detroit, and me coming from Texarkana, Texas, to be there with the Classic Temps, David, Eddie, Paul and Melvin, who made such, I would like to think, profound history in the music that we made.” “You could have tipped me over with a feather before I believed all that would happen,” Williams says of his life as a Temptation. “That came long because at that time the world, but especially America, we needed that, those songs, to help get free of some of the craziness that was going on. “And to be part of something that will produce so many wonderful hits, so many wonderful artists, that was no happenstance,” he says. I would tell them the ’60s was the most tumultuous decade within the last 100 years, and through all that, God in his infinite wisdom brought that little two-story family flat together for a reason – Motown Records. “I talk to the audience, you know, to give them a little inside feeling about Motown. “There’s a sit-down in our show that we do,” Williams says. The classic lineup of the group – originals Williams, Melvin Franklin, Eddie Kendricks, and Paul Williams, with David Ruffin who joined a few years later – have the spotlight in the show, performing hits including “My Girl,” “I Can’t Get Next To You,” “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone,” and, of course, “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg.” “Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations” is based on Williams’ memoir, and tells the story of the group’s journey from the March 1961 audition that led Gordy to sign the five singers to Motown, through the highs and lows of the years that followed. So I would be surprised if it wasn’t doing great, to be frank.” “Audiences love the story and love the music.
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