A few more tastes of honey before the grit took over!

By the late 1960s, R&B music was changing towards a grittier, more socially conscious sound courtesy of cutting edge artists like Sly & The Family Stone, James Brown & George Clinton (even though he had only released the single "I Wanna Testify" with the Parliaments at the time). While a lot of R&B acts were changing with the times, Motown Records was still a bit set in its ways by 1968. The emphasis was still on music smooth enough to make the pop charts, which it often did. Occasionally, a song or two would reflect the more modernized sound of R&B on a Motown album, but one group had been slowly working towards the rougher sound for a few years by 1968, and they were the Temptations. They had recently enlisted the production team of Norman Whitfield & Barrett Strong after Smokey Robinson quit working with them full-time. Whitfield & Strong's approach to recording was something more rootsy than the polished sound of Smokey. So just when it seemed the Tempts were about to lose their momentum, the new sound was a kick in the pants for them. But before they truly adopted the funkier soul sound on 1969's CLOUD NINE, their previous two albums were still in the smoother vein of their past work, but a few hints of the future were evident.



1968's WISH IT WOULD RAIN was just like any other album from a Motown group, one that basically followed a single or three, with some pleasant filler in between. But this album I think was one of the Tempts lesser-known hits, which is why I'm reviewing it before all the others. The title track opens with a gospel-sounding piano that eventually gives way to the rough-but-honey-sweet vocal of David Ruffin on a song that in fact managed to top the R&B charts and peak at #4 pop. Once again, the high position belies the fact that this song isn't one of the Tempts' better-known classics. Probably because it doesn't get more requests than "My Girl". The album's other two hit singles deserve some attention. "I Could Never Love Another [After Loving You]" contains the stately strings that so defined Motown's golden age, also with another great lead from David Ruffin, who would leave the Tempts shortly after this album. This song topped R&B again, but missed the pop top 10. It's a shame, because it really deserved to do better. But with Ruffin's days numbered in the Tempts, the last hit single from WISH IT WOULD RAIN, "Please Return Your Love To Me", had the boyish falsetto of Eddie Kendricks singing it. Of course, this was one of those good-but-not-great songs, but the fact that it made only #26 pop shows that either radio thought it wasn't a surefire seller, or that Motown thought the same & decided not to promote it vigourously. If you thought Eddie sounded good on "Just My Imagination", his vocal on "Please Return" is not far behind. Elsewhere, the album contains some lesser-known songs that whether or not they're good depends on the listener themselves. But some are notable, however. The Tempts' former producer Smokey Robinson returns to write & produce two great-as-expected songs, "Cindy" & "Fan The Flame". While "Get Ready"'s failure to become a big hit lead to the end of the Tempts' working with Smokey, those two songs prove the old magic hadn't been lost in the meantime. "I Truly, Truly Believe" should be noted for it being sung by Melvin Franklin, the bass voice of the Temptations. Most often, bass singers are relegated to the background, but that song proves Franklin should have been given more leads like this. The only thing wrong with "This Is My Beloved" is that it barely lasts two minutes long & could have paid to be fleshed out a bit more. Finally, the closing "No Man Can Love Her Like I Do" was co-written by Eddie Kendricks, which is strange considering Motown's legendary Svengali-like attitude toward its acts. Most often, the singers sang & the writers wrote, but not necessarily both. A song like this proves maybe there were times when Motown allowed a little more creative freedom for its acts.



All in all, WISH IT WOULD RAIN was a good album from the time when the Tempts were still making music easily palatable by pop music fans as much as soul. With Sly & The Family Stone coming into their own, they probably realized they needed to keep up with the times, so either they or at least Whitfield & Strong decided to steer the Tempts in a more modernized direction from then on. While the music would soon be more ambitious & cutting edge, WISH IT WOULD RAIN is a good last gasp for the smoother brand of R&B that had brought the Temptations their first acclaim.



P.S. Check my review of IN A MELLOW MOOD on the remastered version of that album. I reviewed WISH IT WOULD RAIN here because it doesn't seem to be available anymore in the U.S.

Odd Coupling

According to the liner notes, the Temptations line-up for both these albums was David Ruffin, Eddie Kendricks and Otis Williams (tenor vocals), Paul Williams (baritone vocal) and Melvin Franklin (bass vocal), but by the time The Temptations Wish It Would Rain had come out in August 1968, David Ruffin had left the group and gone solo to Motown the month before. Dennis Edwards had already taken his place on stage and may be present on some of the more recent of these recordings. Mostly produced by Norman Whitfield, the album was to yield four singles in the US, the UK or both, including the memorable I Wish It Would Rain, the first Motown single to include sound effects and a US Top Five hit. It came out in December 1967, preceding the album by nine months, and appears here at a four-second foreshortened 2.42.



Like its follow up, I Could Never Love Another (After Loving You), also with one of David Ruffin's most heartfelt vocals, the lyric to I Wish It Would Rain was written by Roger Penzabene, who was vividly experiencing the emotions he wrote about in his songs for the Temptations and Gladys Knight and the Pips (End Of Our Road) from this time, and who was to commit suicide before he could benefit from their success.



Former regular producer Smokey Robinson contributes two songs; Cindy, which could easily have been a single had Norman Whitfield allowed it, and the cheerier up-tempo Fan The Flame. Gonna Give Her All The Love I've Got is their version of the song Norman Whitfield had already given Jimmy Ruffin a hit with. He Who Picks A Rose was later covered by the Carstairs and Rare Earth, and by Edwin Starr on the B-side of his hit War. The Henry Cosby-produced I Truly Truly Believe was led by Melvin Franklyn and was an R&B hit in its own right after appearing as the B-side of I Wish It Would Rain. The album closer had a classic Motown sound and groove. No Man Can Love Her Like A Do had a rare composer credit for Eddie Kendricks and was co-written with Norman Whitfield and Motown-mainstay Eddie Holland.



This was to be the last album in the classic Temptations style as the next release debuted their new acid soul sound. This was even more startling given that the album that had preceded this one was a selection of Broadway standards.



Berry Gordy, the label boss, always had one business foot in the more sophisticated (i.e. square) adult (particularly white adult) mainstream market, and a number of his acts found themselves recording live albums at the Talk Of The Town or the Copa, or in the studio for a glitzy collection of jazzed-up standards, and the Temptations were no exception.



In A Mellow Mood is an odd coupling as it was full of show tunes like Hello, Young Lovers (from The King and I), Somewhere (from West Side Story), Try to Remember (from The Fantasticks) (perhaps inspiring Gladys Knight), Who Can I Turn To (from The Roar Of The Greasepaint, The Roar Of The Crowd) and Ol' Man River (from Showboat).



On Ol' Man River, for which Melvin Franklyn sings a bass lead, they wisely use the less racist lyric revision by Paul Robeson, who originally sang it. The Frank Sinatra song book is raided for That's Life, For Once in My Life and The Impossible Dream (the latter from Man Of La Mancha), and Gilbert Bécaud's popular What Now My Love? is aired along with several others.



The oddest track is a reworking of the Holland-Dozier-Holland tune I'm Ready For Love, a hit for Martha and the Vandellas the year before. It retains its traditional bass line and tempo but a jazz element has been added. This sits uncomfortably at first both with memories of the original and with the rest of this album, but becomes addictive after a couple of listens and then seems far too short. The Motown house band does an absolutely fantastic job throughout, showing they can be play in any style with ease, whilst the Temptations show that they are equally adept in the harmony department, though one does wonder what these outings did for their credibility and positioning as spokesmen for the hip radical left