As I'm going through my music and doing these reviews it seems that if I'm ever not sure of the date, just use 1972 by default. I bought a whole heap of music that year, of all types from .. as the title of this album says .. All Directions !
I know exactly why I bought this one. Track 3, almost 12 minutes. In every second of those 12 minutes every note and every beat are just where they should be. 'Papa Was a Rollin' Stone'. It's almost 4 minutes into the song before the vocal kicks in. What a brave move. Even when it was released as a single it was only cut back to 7 minutes and still had just short of a 2 minute instrumental lead-in.
The story behind the song is a bit more fractious though. It was written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong for a group called 'The Undisputed Truth'. They recorded it and released it as a 3.28 single in 1972 but it didn't do much for them. Whitfield was the producer on this album so took the song and blew it out to the 12 minute version here.
The Temptations weren't happy with the amount of instrumentation the song was getting, feeling it was taking over from their vocals. Some of them also had problems with the lyrics and ultimately they weren't happy about recording it and tried not to. They were convinced that the song and the album would be a dud. As it turns out, it's one of the Temptations most popular and signature songs.
The problems didn't stop there. The second track on side one is 'Run Charlie Run'. It's basically a Black Power song about whites moving out of areas that are becoming racially diverse. The song called for them to sing the line in parenthesis in a false caucasian accent ..
"So I'ma telling you
Run, Charlie, run
Look the ni**ers are coming
(The ni**ers are coming?)"
'I Ain't Got Nothing' is a slow smooth lament - "Every road has a way (And they tell me every dog has its day)" - and it includes the fill shoutout "(Shoo-wop-shoo-wop)". Magic.
There's a few other covers on here too. Edwin Starr's 'Funky Music Sho' 'Nuff Turns Me On' also written by Strong and Whitfield and 'Love Woke Me Up This Morning' originally done by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, written by the amazing Ashford and Simpson.
Then, and this came as a surprise to me when I bought the album, they do a version of 'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face'.
I was surprised because the well known and popular Roberta Flack single had only been released a few months before. The song itself had been around for quite a while even then. It was written in 1957 by Ewan MacColl, who I just mentioned in a recent post as being not only a singer/songwriter himself but father to Kirsty MacColl.
The song had been recorded a number of times over the years, Roberta used to sing it in a club where she was resident singer. In 1969 she recorded it for her debut album. In 1971 Clint Eastwood heard it and asked to put it into his movie 'Play Misty For Me' (great movie BTW) and so her version was released as a single and became a massive hit.
It just seemed odd that the Temptations would include it here so soon.
The last track 'Do Your Thing' was another cover, this time an Isaac Hayes song from the 'Shaft' soundtrack.
Depending on which Temptations song you listen to dictates which Temptations you get. Over the years since around 1960 there have been about 25 members of the group. In fact 2 of them, Paul Williams and Eddie Kendricks, were together from the mid 50's as The Primes. Add David Ruffin to the mix as lead singer on many of their singles and what a line-up. 'My Girl', 'Ain't Too Proud To Beg', 'I Wish It Would Rain', '(I Know) I'm Losing You', 'Just My Imagination' then later teaming up with The Supremes for 'I'm Gonna Make You Love Me' the list goes on.
They had the voices, the style and certainly they had the moves.
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