Sky's the Limit: The Temptations' Vault Ballad Amid Backstage Brawls

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In late 1970 the Temptations were working under producer Norman Whitfield in a psychedelic soul phase when the single Ungena Za Ulimwengu (Unite the World) missed the top 30, the first time the group had done so since 1964. Whitfield turned back to ballads for the album Sky's the Limit and pulled out Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me), a song he and Barrett Strong had written in 1969 but shelved because it clashed with the group's heavier image. Half the album ended up as ballads. The song became the group's third No. 1 in 1971, even as the men recording it were fighting off the record.

Founding member Paul Williams, living with sickle cell disease and alcoholism, was in and out of the hospital throughout 1970, and Richard Street of the Monitors sang his parts from behind a curtain while Williams lip-synced. Eddie Kendricks, who sang the lead on Just My Imagination, kept demanding the return of David Ruffin, fired in June 1968, and clashed physically with Otis Williams and Melvin Franklin. At the Copacabana in November 1970, Otis, grieving his mother, cracked a note, and Kendricks was so angry that Otis and Melvin fled the club. Kendricks then skipped the next show and left the group in April 1971.

• Paul Williams later moved to a backstage role handling choreography and took his own life in 1973.
• Motown's handling of Williams is set against Berry Gordy's assembly-line model, drawn from his job at a Lincoln-Mercury plant.
• Smiling Faces Sometimes, a 12-minute track with Kendricks on lead, was pulled as the album's planned third single.
• Whitfield gave Smiling Faces Sometimes to the Undisputed Truth, who took it into the top five.
• The remaining quartet re-recorded It's Summer to fill the gap, while Kendricks went solo on Tamla with Keep On Truckin' in 1973 and Boogie Down in 1974.