Otis Williams' Temptations: Ruffin's Stage Invasions and a Whitfield Ouster

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The Temptations formed in Detroit in 1961 from two struggling groups: Otis Williams, Melvin Franklin and Al Bryant of the Distants, and Eddie Kendricks and Paul Williams of the Primes. After trying the name the Elgins, they picked the Temptations on the steps of Hitsville U.S.A., then went so long without a hit that others called them the Hitless Temptations. When Bryant, who preferred his job as a milkman, hit Paul Williams with a beer bottle, he was fired, and David Ruffin took his place. Smokey Robinson wrote a 1964 signature song for Ruffin's rough yet mellow voice, launching the Classic Five era. Ruffin then rode to gigs in a mink-lined limousine, missed rehearsals amid cocaine use and demanded the act be renamed David Ruffin and the Temptations.

The group fired Ruffin in 1968 and hired Dennis Edwards, and that summer at a Pennsylvania show Ruffin jumped onstage, took the microphone and sang lead, a stunt he repeated. Under Norman Whitfield the group moved to psychedelic soul and traded leads among all five members, releasing a Grammy-winning track in 1968. Paul Williams, ill with sickle cell disease, lip-synced while Richard Street sang his parts offstage, and Kendricks quit as one of his ballads hit No. 1. When Whitfield's long intros and a nearly two-minute opening sidelined their voices, the group asked Motown to remove him, then later left for Atlantic before returning.

• Paul Williams traveled with oxygen tanks near the end of his time in the group and died by suicide in 1973.
• A 1982 reunion tour with Ruffin and Kendricks collapsed amid Ruffin's addiction and Kendricks' weakened voice.
• At the 1989 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, Kendricks reportedly would not speak to Otis Williams.
• Ruffin died of an overdose in 1991, Kendricks of lung cancer in 1992 and Melvin Franklin after a brain seizure in 1995.
• Otis Williams, the only continuous original member, kept the group's suits, choreography and name going into the 21st century.