DISGRACELAND - The Temptations: Fame, Drugs, and Paranoia

Episode Date: May 31, 2022

The Temptations were one of Motown’s signature vocal groups, and they remain one of the most successful R&B acts of all time. But fame and drugs corrupted them from the beginning. Lineup changes were as frequent as their chart-topping hits. Eventually their rocky road led to drug addiction, crippling paranoia, routine backstabbing, and one of the most tragic deaths in the history of the Motor City. This episode contains themes that may be disturbing to some listeners, including discussions about suicide. If you’re thinking about suicide or are worried about a friend or loved one, call the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255. To see the full list of contributors, see the show notes at ⁠www.disgracelandpod.com⁠. This episode was originally published on May 31, 2022. To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get access to a monthly exclusive episode, weekly bonus content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at ⁠disgracelandpod.com/membership⁠. Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - ⁠GET THE NEWSLETTER⁠ Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND: ⁠Instagram⁠ ⁠YouTube⁠ ⁠X⁠ (formerly Twitter)  ⁠Facebook Fan Group⁠ ⁠TikTok  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed, I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends.

Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that.

David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Dennis Leary, Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things, Tana Monsu, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sometimes a suspect is found guilty before a verdict is ever read in court.

On the Wicked Words podcast, I talk with the writers who dig deep into the cases that changed history, including Marsha Clark, who went from prosecuting one of the most famous murder cases to writing crime fiction. It doesn't matter that you didn't take part in the murder. If you were at the scene at all, you're guilty of murder. Every week, the real story is revealed. Join us every Monday for new episodes of Wicked Words. Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners. Please check the show notes for more information. Disgrace Land is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about the temptations are insane. They are one of the most successful and beloved R&B groups of all time, despite the fact that group members were tragically corrupted by fame and drugs. David Ruffin in particular battled a 20-plus-year cocaine habit. His ego was so huge that he rode in a private mink-lined car

and hired his own manager and bodyguard. He was so volatile that it's been long rumored that he, He was responsible for the most tragic death in Motown history. And he was so paranoid that he believed the death of a fellow temptation was not an accident, but a warning to those like him who dared disrupt the flow of Motown's famed factory line. The Temptations made great music, from their classic five lineup with David Ruffin to the psychedelic soul made with Dennis Edwards, great music. Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music.

That was a preset loop from my Melotron called Milk Milk Promenade, MK1. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to The Morning After by Maureen McGovern. And why would I play you that specific slice of nony New Year's cheese could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on August 17. 1973. And that was the day the temptation Paul Williams was found dead outside his car in Detroit, a death that would raise many questions and stoke many conspiracy theories. On this episode, cocaine, tall egos, mink-lined cars, disrupting Motown's flow in the temptations. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is disgraceland.

The dollar bill was old. It smelled like oil and sweat. David Ruffin rolled it up with his fingers and then used it to do a line off the table. He tasted iron at the back of his throat. If his nose was about to geyser blood all over the place, so be it. It would take his mind off the things he didn't want to think about. There was plenty he could stand to forget.

Like his third solo record, it was finished, but Motown Records wasn't going to release. it. David Ruffin had once been a sure-fire moneymaker, but his solo singles as of late were a series of diminishing returns, and the venerable Detroit label didn't pump cash and resources into diminishing returns. Back when David Ruffin was a member of the Temptations, he was a star. Otis Williams may have been the leader of the group, but David Ruffin stood out, not just because he was tall as shit and not just for his trademark horn-wringed glasses. David Ruffin had a gravely, gruff voice imbued with sadness, longing, and sex on Fuego.

Darrell Hall of Hall & Oates would later describe the voice behind Ain't Too Proud to Beg, My Girl, and I know I'm losing you as crying in tune. David Ruffin's voice was so robust it made other singers like Marvin Gay want to up their game. When David replaced original temptation Al Bryant in 1964, his voice was just the thing the band had been missing. And although the temptations had their syncopated dance steps down, including the high-stepping signature move called the Temptation Walk, David always took it one step higher.

He tossed the mic in the air, spun around in a 360 sweep, dropped down to his knees, and rebounded like an elastic band. As a temptation, David Ruffin was the star of the show. And to be the star, you had a big star. be ready. You had to be ready for the attention, the applause, the fame. If you weren't ready, then you had to get ready. The green shark skin suit gave you some confidence, but even better was the pre-show gin and soda. Make it the double. Are you ready now? Fifi Fum, baby, better best fucking believe it, you're ready. And then, after you kill the show, when you walk backstage all sweaty

and you're still riding that high of adrenaline and applause, and the way those women stared at the bald shifting around inside your tight pants. You want that feeling to go all night. So cue the cocaine. Coke kept the high, real high. And you were number one on the R&B charts? Big fucking deal. You're number one tonight, every night up on that stage, at the after party in the hotel room, between the sheets. Fiddly de-fiddly dumb, motherfuckers. The last but not least, after the coke had worn off and the first rays of the sun peaked out over the horizon, the pills were clutch. They made your eyelids heavy and you're slumber deep. The next day, you'd do it all over again.

It was 1967. Now it was 1970. And David Ruffin was no longer a temptation. Hadn't been for two years. These days, the gin and soda just got him drunk, and the pills no longer had an effect on his sleep patterns. And the cocaine, the cocaine just made him paranoid. David looked across the table of his Detroit apartment at Eddie Kendricks.

He passed the old rolled-up dollar bill to his former bandmate. Eddie had been a temptation long before David was hired. He'd been there when the vocal group first auditioned at Motown under the name the Elginz. Eddie had the smoothest voice in the temptations, the one that people would always call a falsetto, even though technically he was a natural tenor. That's his voice leading smash hits,

like the way you do the things you do and get ready. And unlike other members of the group, Eddie stayed in touch with David even after he'd been canned in 1968. Eddie knew we should be angry at David. David big-time to the whole band. When the temptations got famous, they found themselves with more money than they never laid eyes on, and naturally they spent it.

They bought nice clothes, nice houses, and nice cars. But David didn't just buy any car. He bought a stretch El Camino convertible with white mink seat covers and white mink floor mats on the inside, with his name and face plastered on the doors. And then he hired his own manager, and then he hired his own bodyguard. When he saw how Diana Ross managed to get the official name of the Supremes

changed to Diana Ross and the Supremes, David tried to pull the same shit. Forget Drugs, man, it was fame that fucked up David Ruffin. At least at first it did. And when David became too important to even show up at concerts, that's when the decision to cut him loose became a very easy one. Still, in Eddie's mind, time healed some, if not all, wounds. Plus, David had insight into the interpersonal dynamics of the temptations,

plus what it was like to go it alone in the Motown machine. That was valuable intel for Eddie. Eddie was out of crossroads with his career. Should he continue being a temptation, should he strike out on his own? He needed the unique counsel of someone like David Ruffin. Plus, David had the good dope. Eddie's issue was this. He didn't think the temptations were being treated fairly.

In fact, he was pretty sure they were being fucked six ways to Sunday by the Motown Brass. But Eddie was the quiet temptation. He rarely spoke up, kept on trucking and stayed in line. Until now. Look at Stevie Wonder, man. He turned 21 in May, refused to renew his bullshit contract, just walked away. And then Barry went groveling after him and paid Stevie millions. Stevie got his.

Why can't we get ours? David Ruffin looked through his thick, horn-rimmed glasses straight into the eyes of Eddie Kendricks. You're right, man. 100%. David, hoovered some more blow and kept talking. Shit, man, we were earning something like 10 grand a night. We didn't see that money, did we?

Motherfuckers tossed us 500 a week, if we were lucky. But where did the rest of that money go? Here's how it's going to shake down. Barry Gordy's going to work you and work you and work you and then once you're too weak or too angry or you become too unpredictable, he's going to toss you out. He'll leave you with nothing, and he's going to have Otis help him. You think Otis is on your side?

Look at me, man. Why do you think I'm no longer a temptation? Because Otis threw me under the goddamn bus when it was convenient for him. Same thing is going to happen to you. You're next, brother. David collected his thoughts as the cocaine invigorated and nauseated him all at once. But if you complain about it, look at what they did to Flo. Flo talked all kinds of shit about what was going down with the Supremes.

Barry was all about Diana because Barry was fucking Diana. Diana and Mary threw flow to the wolves. Pretty soon she couldn't fit in those tight dresses anymore, and that was that. Barry cut her out of the picture faster than James James James Mason could lay down a baseline. And then Barry blackballed her man, industry-wide. She went to another label, and her records went nowhere. Literally, they weren't distributed. They weren't promoted.

Who the fuck does Barry Gordy know to make that shit happen at another label? What kind of guys is he working with behind the scenes? Because you know that Barry Gordy made that shit happen. David snorted another line and waited for the burn to subside. He had some big solo hits in the last two years. Well, okay, one hit really. My whole world ended the moment you left me went to number nine on the Billboard Hot 100. One hit was far from the glory that the temptations enjoyed.

From 1966 to 1971, they'd released 21 singles. All of them hits, and most of them, number one or number two, on the R&B charts. The temptations were Motown royalty With or without David Ruffin. Was the shelving of David's third solo album A Bad Omen of Things to Come? Had Motown chewed him up? Was Barry Gordy preparing to spit him out?

David couldn't help but wonder. He also couldn't help but wonder if finding a way back into the temptations could stave off the inevitable, revitalize his career, bring him back from the pasture he was being ushered out to. Shit, that's how he became a temptation in the first place, he weaseled his way in. He ain't too proud to beg. But the temptations were a quintet.

In order for David to return, one of them would have to leave. David narrowed his eyes. He passed the dollar bill to Eddie once more and began to talk. And then again, it is a dog-eat-dog world out there, brother. And you got a good point about Stevie. Maybe the tide is changing. Maybe it is time you may stand. There's two golden rules. that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either.

We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends... Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? me. The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves.

Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When, like, young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. And my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that. Dennis Leary. I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb.

And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance like he's about to attack me. Like making karate noises. And his entire, the Kardashian family over there, everybody's going. And the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming. And I immediately know that. that I've been in sleepwalk. David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction

or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kimman broke up with Keith Durbin. Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting. I like that. Did you practice that on your way over?

Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things. Santa M'Ju, Camilla Marone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember when you'd walk into your local video rental place and there were always those two employees

behind the counter arguing about movies? Well, that's us. I'm Millie de Cherokee. And I'm Casey O'Brien. And now we're arguing about movies on our podcast, Dear Movies I Love You, from the Exactly Right Network. Can I say something about the criterion closet? Go ahead, dude.

They're letting too many people in there. Okay, that's another film, grape I got two. Sadly, that rental place doesn't exist anymore. It's probably a store that sells running shoes. Or an ice cream shop with an extra pee and an E at the end. So consider us your slacker movie clerks in podcast form. I would like to establish a timeline of the moment you figured out who Channing Tatum was. Every Tuesday, we dig into the movies.

Can't Stop Obsessing Over, from hidden gems to big screen favorites. New episodes drop every week on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to Dear Movies I Love You on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Paul Williams was insistent. They had to get back on stage. They could all hear the crowd from their dressing room. The audience was still roaring and the place was electric. But the temptations had already given three encores. they were physically exhausted. That was Al Bryant's reasoning for putting his foot down. Unlike his bandmate, Paul Williams,

Al was done for the night. And if he was done, then the rest of the temptations were going to be done too. Al's reasoning was only partially true, and the rest of the guys knew it. They knew that Al was mostly just pissed that he'd been upstage that night. Not by any of them.

He'd been upstaged by David Ruffin, the skinny guy with the huge voice who'd recently moved to the Motor City with his brother, Jimmy, and was spending a lot of time waiting in Motown's wings for his big shot. David was always around. If he wasn't working over Barry Gordy for a record deal, he was endearing himself to the temptation's own Melvin Franklin and Otis Williams. On this particular night, in October of 1963 at Chappie's Lounge in Detroit,

David Ruffin had grown tired of waiting in the wings. His big shot was right there on stage for the taking, so he took it. He literally sprung from the crowd and joined the temptations on stage. He didn't leave and no one tried to make him leave either. He sang the songs, he did the moves, he made it look easy. He made it look like he belonged there. The fucking nerve of David Ruffin. Motherfucker was trying to bully his way into the temptations.

It infuriated Al Bryant to no end. And it infuriated Al even more when no one else seemed to give us. shit. Backstage, Paul Williams kept trying to convince the guys that they were obligated to perform a fourth encore. Al Bryant popped the top on a beer bottle and guzzled it. He knew there had been tension in the band for a while. He knew he drank too much. He knew that he was difficult to work with. He knew that the band knew that he drank too much and was difficult to work with. Like three encores, David Ruffin in his stupid fucking glasses? Come on, man, fuck that. Al Bryan stared at Paul Williams and took another swig.

His eyes seethed with anger and humiliation. Paul kept pleading his case. They were performers and the audience deserved to get their money's worth. Al emptied the rest of the contents of the bottle down his throat. Fucking Paul Williams, he thought. Talking big like he can tell me what to do and not to do. Al lifted his arm in the air. Paul Williams is going to rue the day and ran his mouth at Al Bryant.

The empty beer bottle fell. light and powerful in Al's hand. With a vengeful thrust, he brought the beer bottle down on Paul's head. At least he intended to hit Paul's head. The bottle caught Paul on the nose, and the glass shattered into Paul's face. A shard narrowly missed his eye, blood spurred it from Paul's beak. That settled it. The temptations were not going out for a fourth encore. It also settled Al Bryant's fate. Though his tenure as a temptation didn't end that day, It wasn't long after in 1964 that Al was voted out of the group, and David Ruffin was more than ready to take his place.

Fiddily D. Fiddily Dumb. The classic five era of the temptations with tenor David Ruffin produced a string of hits so strong that it made the group, along with the Supremes, the standard of excellence for Motown. Producers fought over the privilege to work with him. Norman Woodfield, a writer and producer, who had been grinding it out at Motown, sometimes on lowly tambourine, and other times in the Quality Control Department,

even went so far as to challenge Motown genius Smokey Robinson, who had been working with the group since their start. In 1966, Smokey was about to release his latest temptations track, Get Ready. Norman made a bet that if his new temptations track ain't too proud to beg, charted higher than Get Ready, that he'd earned the privilege to be the group's primary collaborator. Both songs hit number one on the R&B charts, but ain't too proud to beg went higher on the Hot 100,

all the way to Lucky Number 13. It wasn't exactly luck for Norman Whitfield. It was an artistic coup, and it would soon pay out massive dividends for him Motown and The Temptations. There were two major events that helped set the stage for the lucrative phase two of both Motown and the temptations. First, Detroit caught fire, literally. For five hot days in July of 1967, the city rioted.

It all started when Detroit PD's Vice Squad, most of them white, raided an after-hours bar and arrested nearly 90 black patrons. Tensions between the white cobs and black neighborhoods were already high. Buildings burned. Gunshots rang out. National Guard tanks rumbled down streets that resembled a war zone. The iconic Hitzville USA building at 2648 West Grand Boulevard, the one that Barry Gordy had converted into a studio when the Motown Record Corporation was founded, remained unharmed during the chaos.

But the social unrest happening outside did make its way inside. Most notably, when a new Motown artist, an Islam convert named Abdullah, who aligned himself with the Black Power Movement, attacked Ralph Selzer, a white Motown executive with a letter opener. Historically, Motown didn't do politics. Motown wasn't about confrontation. And yes, it's true that Barry Gordy did release Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous I Have a Dream speech on Wax in 1963.

But when it came to the social revolution that was percolated coast to coast, Motown was Switzerland. In Barry Gordy's eyes, Black Power was right there and all the green dollars he was raking in. Motown was a business and rocking the boat. was bad for business. Norman Woodfield disagreed. He thought that Motown could pivot to socially conscious music

along with a more contemporary sound. He saw Motown's future, not in genteel dinner theater music, but as a hybrid of rock and soul. More sly in the family stone than Johnny Mathis. The other major event that set Norman's plan in motion was the departure of Holland Dozier Holland, the Juggernaut songwriting and production trio that had defined Motown sound for years.

They walked out over, surprise, money disputes with Barry Gordy and left a whole lot of talent just standing in the shadows. This was Motown's greatest moment of crisis. If the label had continued operations as normal, as if the world wasn't changing around them, would it still be around today? Norman Woodfield looked into the future and had his answer. He also saw his window of opportunity step up and step in,

Just like David Ruffin had seen his window of opportunity when The Temptations had beef with Al Bryant. It was an opportunity that would change the course of musical history. But first, Norman Woodfield had to stop history from repeating itself because David Ruffin was quickly becoming Al Bryant 2.0. David didn't prove to be a solution to the Temptations problems. Instead, David just brought his own problems just like Al Bryant had before him. And his own baggage. As a child in Mississippi, David Ruffin was routinely abused by a father who wielded an eight-inch rawhide leather whip.

According to one of David's girlfriends, he was also sexually abused when he was younger, a story that has been corroborated by at least one other friend. By all accounts, David Ruffin's life was extremely fucked up from the get-go. As an adult, he regularly mistreated the people who were supposed to be the most important in his life. life. He needed his ego fed constantly. People told him he was the temptation, so that's what he believed, and in turn he treated the rest of the band like shit. He treated Tammy Terrell even worse. Tammy Terrell had an unforgettable voice that came from an unforgettable face. By the time she got to Motown, she'd already endured physical abuse from her previous boyfriend, the hardest working

men in showbiz James Brown, and it only got worse with David Ruffin. David had been corrupted by fame at this point, diamond studded glasses and white mink interior convertible and all that. He was also corrupted by cocaine. And now the temptations weren't without their temptations. For David, it was Coke. For Paul Williams, it was two to three bottles of Cavassier each day. Money changes everything, Otis Williams once said about the messy trajectory of the group, but For David Ruffin, it's not like the money changed him. Money just allowed him to continue to be an asshole to everyone in his orbit, but to do it with a budget.

He asked Tammy to marry him, but failed to divulge that not only was he already married with children, but he had another girlfriend with whom he also had a child. And when Tammy got real famous, that's when things got real bad. Tammy sang on a series of instantly iconic duets with labelmate Marvin Gay, and pretty soon she was a household name. name. David Ruffin, by contrast, was just a temptation. It bugged the shit out of him, that a woman, his woman, would dare to be more famous than him. So David took it out on her. Tammy showed up at the Hitzville USA building with bruises and black eyes barely concealed. Earl Van Dyke,

keyboardist with Motown's in-house band known as the Funk brothers, witnessed David physically attacked Tammy in the studio. Tammy even confided in Otis Williams that David had once hit her on the head with a lamp, A fucking lamp, she showed Otis the lump. David and Tammy's relationship was so toxic and so volatile that even the craziest rumors seemed like they could be true. Most of those rumors involved David hitting Tammy on the head with something, a lamp, his motorcycle helmet. The worst rumor of all, however, was that he had hit her on the head with a hammer.

Some said the rumor was true. Some said it was on-brand behavior for a guy with a violent past and a bruised ego and thus must be true. And some even went so far to say that when Tammy died tragically just a few years later at the age of 24, it was more than obvious who was to blame. We'll be right back after this word, word, word. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl.

You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And Rule 2, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of The Girlfriends... Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me?

The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe.

On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When, like, young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever, and my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do.

You'd rather be disappointed in. Do that. Dennis Leary. I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance. Like he's about to attack me. Like making karate noises. And the entire the Kardashian family over there, everybody's going.

And the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming. I immediately know that I've been asleep walking. David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kimman broke up with Keith Thurban. Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting. I like that. Did you practice that on your way over?

Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things. Tena Mongeau. Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember when you'd walk into your local video rental place and there were always those two employees behind the counter arguing about movies? Well, that's us. I'm Millie de Cherico. And I'm Casey O'Brien. And now we're arguing about movies on our podcast, Dear Movies I Love You, from the Exactly Right Network. Can I say something about the Criterion Clause? Go ahead, dude. They're letting too many people in there. Okay. That's another film.

right by got two. Sadly, that rental place doesn't exist anymore. It's probably a store that sells running shoes. Or an ice cream shop with an extra pee and an E at the end. So consider us your slacker movie clerks in podcast form. I would like to establish a timeline of the moment you figured out who Channing Tatum was. Every Tuesday, we dig into the movies we can't stop obsessing over. From hidden gems to big screen favorites.

New episodes drop every week on the exactly right. network. Listen to Deer Movies I Love You on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Eddie Kendricks decided he'd had enough cocaine for one day. He pushed the old rolled-up dollar bill, the one that smelled like oil and sweat. Back over to David Ruffin. David looked like shit. His apartment was a mess. Eddie wondered if David's whole world had ended when he was kicked out of the temptations. David filled Eddie's head with so much information. that day. So much conflicting information that Eddie didn't even know where to begin. Should Eddie push back on Barry Gordy? Would he be committing career suicide if he made a fuss?

Should he just shut up and work himself to death? Do you want to end up like David Ruffin, his solo albums collecting dust on a shelf in Motown's office while his former band soldiered on without him? One question he didn't ask himself was whether or not David was playing with him, just like David played with everyone else in his life, in order to insert himself back into the temptations lineup. Not that the group was ready to take him back. The years since David had left had been some of the temptations best,

and that's not a slight on the David Ruffin years. But with tenor Dennis Edwards stepping into David's empty shoes and producer-songwriter Norman Woodfield at the helm, the quintet made some of the most unique and impactful music of their career. The stretch from late 90s, 1968, when David left in 1973, would come to be known as the Temptations Psychedelic Soul period. Lifting heavily from non-Modown groups like Sly and the Family Stone and Funkadelic,

the Temptations created an acid soul hybrid that was both funky and far out. It was new territory for Motown in so many ways. First was the aggressive and trippy musical style, not to mention a way in which many songs had multiple lead singers instead of just one. The lyrical content of tracks like Runaway Child Running Wild, smiling faces sometimes, ball of confusion, that's what the world is today,

and Papa was a rolling stone, reflected a country in constant upheaval, racked with paranoia, confrontation, and betrayal. And with Dennis Edwards' gruff and intense voice, the tone of the temptation's material became more urgent than ever. Less urgent were the songs need to end quickly, Again, breaking with Motown tradition, many album tracks pushed well into the six, seven, even 13-minute mark.

Norman Woodfield had successfully seized his opportunity to refine Motown Records when it was at its most vulnerable. And while the temps were blazing these LSD trails, David's solo act bordered on quaint nostalgia. Sure, he looks dynamite in the Summer of Soul documentary in his performance as classic, But to be singing My Girl in 1969 was to be singing a song of innocence that was five years old in eternity ago in the fast-paced cultural revolution of the 1960s. By comparison, The Temptations Music wasn't just successful creatively. The group continued to score high on the R&B and pop charts during this era, including number one on both charts in the summer of 1969,

for the killer track I Can't Get Next to You. In that same year, Norman Woodfield and The Temptation scored Motown its first Grammy Award with the song Cloud 9. It was an accomplishment that they'd never achieved either with David Ruffing or Al Bryant. And therein lay Eddie Kendrick's problem. The temptations were more popular and more successful than they'd ever been before, and Barry Gordy was still screwing them over. Eddie appealed to Otis Williams and the other guys in the group. They needed to stage a strike, no singing, no touring.

wouldn't put a goddamn vocal on a goddamn track until Barry made things right. Eddie was overruled. The temptations were successful, sure, but they didn't have the clout of a Diana or a Stevie or a Marvin. It was best to just keep working hard day in and day out, making what money they could and hope that things would continue to work out in their favor down the road. Bullshit. Eddie wasn't satisfied with the position his group was taking.

Frankly, he was pretty fucking unsatisfied. Eddie Kendricks marched down to the Donovan building at 2457 Woodward Avenue, the site of Motown's business offices. He hadn't calmed down. His head was full of the coked up conspiracies of David Ruffin. Eddie could be next. Any of them could be next. And they were being cheated. The time was right. Fuck dancing in the streets. It was time to get paid. Money. That's what I want. Eddie marched right through the front door, practically snapped the thing off its hinges. The other temptations fall closely behind him. Come on, Eddie, chill out, they said.

Let's all chill out and take a minute and figure this out. You're going to blow your stack in there. You're going to regret this, brother. Eddie didn't listen. He was done listening. Barry Gordy was going to listen now. That was where it was at. Eddie blew past the secretaries who asked if they could help.

Blew right into Barry's office. And Barry looked at Eddie with a grin. Smiling faces sometimes, man. Eddie exploded. This motherfucker. or was ripping us off, he yelled and pointed his finger at Barry Gordy. Do you know how many shows we've played and not gotten paid? We sold out Shea Stadium and didn't see a motherfucking dime.

I'm sick of this shit. Eddie Kendricks looked like he was about to jump on top of Barry Gordy's desk, like a replay of when Abdullah jumped on A&R man Ralph Seltzer's desk. Barry Gordy didn't tremble, didn't back down. The calmer he stayed, the more Eddie raged. And the more Eddie raged, the more things remained the same between Motown and the temptation. Eddie was fighting a losing battle. As far as the rest of the group was concerned, there was no battle.

But it drained Eddie Kendrickson. Pretty soon, still bullshit, he quit the temptations. So did Paul Williams, the group's baritone, who had taken a beer bottle to the face back in 1963, but Paul didn't quit in solidarity with Eddie's money drama. Paul had his own damn problems. His voice had been destroyed by alcohol. so at his liver. He suffered from sickle cell amemia and had to use an oxygen take. He had to take off

the oxygen mask every time he lit up a smoke, which was often. He owed the federal government back taxes to the tune of 80 grand, and he was currently shacking up with a girlfriend, seeing his wife had recently kicked him out of the house. All these facts led the police to believe it was suicide when a stranger stumbled upon Paul's body in the early hours of August 17, He was on the pavement, directly beneath the open driver's side door of his Ford Maverick, the kind of car that David Ruffin wouldn't be caught dead in. The pavement was bloody beneath Paul's head. Cops found a smashed bottle of booze nearby and a gun, two bullets missing from the chamber.

Single gunshot wound to the left temple, close range, killed him instantly, self-inflicted, open and shot. Otis Williams was devastated when he hurried. the news, but he wasn't shocked. Paul had been in a bad way for a long time. And not everyone was so sure that Paul Williams had taken his own life. Paul was right-handed. The investigation determined that Paul did, in fact, fire the gun with his right hand, but he had been shot in his left temple. How could he have done that? But why didn't he just shoot himself in the right temple, instead of twisting his arm around to the other side of his body? And what about the broken bottle on the ground. There was also the fact that the gun had two bullets missing, despite the

other fact that Paul had been shot only once. Had someone else been there? Had there been a struggle? Was Paul Williams murdered? To Paul's family, these questions were valid and required answers, and the answers were never good enough. Speaking about the tragedies of people like Paul Williams and the Supremes Florence Ballard, Marvin Gaye said, those people were victims. The business turn them inside out. They couldn't cope. Back at his apartment, David Ruffin did another line. His paranoia reached a fever pitch as the powder hit his bloodstream. He worried that he had said too much to Eddie Kendricks.

According to the pretzel logic going on inside his head, he had offered counsel to Eddie, counsel that ultimately meant Eddie's ejection from the band and thus gave David the upper hand to rejoin, and that plan had backfired and it had somehow gotten Paul killed. David knew it. Was it just his imagination? You know, running away with him?

In David's paranoid mind, the fantastical truth was staring them all in the face. Motown had murdered Paul Williams to serve as an example to guys like David and Eddie. Or so went, David's fucked up thinking. What becomes of the brokenhearted if the brokenhearted try to fight back against Motown to get off? That's what becomes to them. Whether or not that was actually true, there was one thing in David's mind that was indisputable.

And it was something he had said to Eddie. Any of them could be next. Tammy Terrell took Marvin Gay's hand in hers as they reached the climax of Ain't No Mountain High Enough. The spotlight was as locked on them as their eyes were locked on each other. They weren't lovers in life. They were lovers in song. And the audience in Hampton, Sydney College could hear it in their voices

and see it in their faces. But then, Tammy's face changed. Tammy felt dizzy. She looked at the microphone in her hand, and it suddenly looked like a fuzzy square. And the room spun. The sound of the band playing behind them became cavernous. The music echoed in her head.

She looked over at Marvin, who was doing his best to soldier on, despite the obvious fact that his duet partner was panicking. And then, Tammy fell. and the mic dropped to the floor. Marvin was there on the double just as fast as he could. He caught her in his arms. The white-stretched limo came to a stop,

and David Ruffin, sitting in the back seat, came out of a daze. He'd been thinking about Tammy again. It was 1991, more than two decades since her death, and David was still thinking about her. He hadn't been there on that night back in 1967 when she collapsed, but he heard the story of what happened. Moments like these, riding in the back of a borrowed limo, half stoned out of his mind and on the prow for the next fix to get him stone the other half of the way, he replayed the story in his head. He thought about going to see Tammy at the hospital right after it happened, and the doctors said it was a brain tumor.

Tammy didn't tell the doctors about all the times David had hit her in the head. But David heard the rumors around Motown, that Tammy was in a bad way all because of him, and no one dared confront David about. the rumors, they didn't want to be next. As the surgeries piled on and then the chemo started and Tammy's hair fell out and she lost her eyesight and became partially paralyzed, David just stopped showing up. He'd moved on to the next woman well before Tammy passed on in March 1970. Now on June 1st, 1991, David Ruffing was 50 years old, but looked and felt at least 15 years older. He'd been addicted to cocaine for about as long as Tammy had been dead, probably even longer if he was being honest.

He used his Coke pipe as a bonding mechanism with Eddie Kendricks and Dennis Edwards when in 1982 he and Eddie at long last were joined the temptations for a reunion tour in an album. Their routine of days gone past, gin and soda, followed by cocaine, followed by pills, was now replaced with all hits from the pipe all the time. You can only imagine how quickly that reunion went off the rails. He and Eddie felt the warm glow of the spotlight one more time when they played support to Hall of Notes on their 1985 album live at the Apollo, even taking the stage with the Blue-Eyed Soul Brothers at Live Aid

and cracking the top 20 with a medley of the way you do the things you do in my girl that same year, but that was a brief ray of sunshine and a long line of cloudy days for David Ruffin. After he did time and rehab in the late 80s, David still couldn't quit the Coke. He was thrown in jail for possession, did a year on the inside. And now a former rehabber,

former inmate, and former temptation, David Ruffin wasn't holding. He needed to score. It was after midnight. He gazed out the window at a three-story house at the corner of Viola in North 52nd, Philadelphia, PA. He was in Philly because that's where the plane,

had landed. He'd flown back from London after a quasi-temptations reunion tour he'd participated in with Eddie and Dennis. He carried a briefcase filled with money he made on tour, $40,000 in British travelers' checks. Like most of David's money, he knew it wouldn't last him long. The three-story house outside his window was an oasis in an otherwise shady part of town for junkie luminaries like him, a crack house to the stars, a crack house palace. The place didn't just have the best shit. It had sofas and TVs and stereos so that you could make yourself at home while taking a trip to Cloud 9.

According to the limo's driver, Donald Brown, he and David walked inside shortly after midnight and proceeded to smoke between five and ten vials of crack. Three hours later, Donald Brown frantically pulled the white-stretched limo up to the entrance of the University of Pennsylvania Hospital and laid on his horn. David Ruffin was slumped in the back seat. Attendance from the hospital rushed outside and carried David into the ER.

Less than an hour later, he was pronounced dead. Some, like the surviving temptations, were dismayed over another senseless tragedy that took another member of the Motown family away before his time. For others, like David's family, there were unanswered questions like, where was the $40,000 in travelers' checks that David was carrying? At the hospital, he was found with a meager $53 and $1,000. his pocket, and the 40 grand had up and vanished. Was David set up? Had he been fed more drugs and he could handle so that it would make him an easy target to rob? The questions drew parallels

to the supposed suicide of Paul Williams two decades earlier. Similar conspiracy theories began to bubble to the surface. How strong was the long arm of the Motown law? Was there a temptation's curse? It was hard to know. Many of those questions would go unanswered. Maybe forever. But the death of David Ruffin, just like the deaths of Tammy Terrell, Florence Ballard, Paul Williams, and Marvin Gay before him

did make one thing clear. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and that ain't no lie. In fact, it's a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. Discraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis.

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On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When, like, young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do?

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