~
vinyl LP front cover
photo by Styrous®
Today, October 5, is the birthday of Richard Street, one of the members of the Motown group, The Temptations, from 1971 to 1993.
First,
a bit about the unusual album cover itself. It is completely black both
front and back; there have only been two albums totally black with not a single graphic on them. Murray Roman did it with his Blind Man's Movie album in 1969 (link below) and Prince did it in 1987 with his The Black Album.
A Flip-Back and Die-cut flap on the front cover spells out the name of the group, The Temptations, and the name is only visible because the grey record sleeve inside shows through the cuts.
vinyl LP front cover
with Flip-Back + Die-cut flap
photo by Styrous®
The Temptations ~ A Song for You
vinyl LP front cover detail
with Flip-Back + Die-cut flap
detail photo by Styrous®
My favorite cut from the album is The Profit
which is totally different from any of the other songs on it. It
is moderately slow but with a driving beat that is terrific to slow
dance to and features a huge chorus with
tons of strings. The lead vocal by Melvin Franklin is sensual, almost erotic but the lyrics are
intense and have a religious slant (link below).
The Profit
[Verse 1]
A man cried
“Where do we look? Where do we search? How do we find it?”
A woman cried love
“My body needs love, my soul needs love, how do I find it?”
We all need love, gotta have love
Prophet! Prophet!
[Verse 2]
He said that love will call to you
So follow him, though it’s hard to do
Believe, believe! We gotta believe!
Within your heart is the secret of life
With joy and sorrow, pleasure and strife
Love is all of these things
[Refrain]
I dream of the prophet man from a far distant land
Ali!
[Verse 3]
A priestess said, “Tell us a prayer!”
A lawyer said, “Is law fair?”
Astronomers cried of galaxies and time
A poet said, “Is there duty to find?”
Speak of God, speak of reason
Speak about death, speak about freedom
Gotta have truth, gotta have wisdom
Give us your word to give to our children
[Refrain]
I dream of the prophet man from a far distant land
Ali!
[Bridge]
The clock struck twelve on the church odd wall
Their voices beckoned to the prophet’s call
You give up yourself when you truly give
Possessions shouldn’t rule the life you live
Work with love and love your work
And idle man is a stranger on earth
Blame yourself for wrong deeds done
The innocent can be the guilty ones
Freedom disguises itself in chains
Happiness sometimes hides in pain
Children are made and are born to you
But they’re not slaves that belong to you
God doesn’t listen to the words you pray
He hears what your heart has got to say
[Outro]
I dream of the prophet man from a far distant land
Ali!
I dream of the prophet man from a far distant land
A man cried
“Where do we look? Where do we search? How do we find it?”
A woman cried love
“My body needs love, my soul needs love, how do I find it?”
We all need love, gotta have love
Prophet! Prophet!
[Verse 2]
He said that love will call to you
So follow him, though it’s hard to do
Believe, believe! We gotta believe!
Within your heart is the secret of life
With joy and sorrow, pleasure and strife
Love is all of these things
[Refrain]
I dream of the prophet man from a far distant land
Ali!
[Verse 3]
A priestess said, “Tell us a prayer!”
A lawyer said, “Is law fair?”
Astronomers cried of galaxies and time
A poet said, “Is there duty to find?”
Speak of God, speak of reason
Speak about death, speak about freedom
Gotta have truth, gotta have wisdom
Give us your word to give to our children
[Refrain]
I dream of the prophet man from a far distant land
Ali!
[Bridge]
The clock struck twelve on the church odd wall
Their voices beckoned to the prophet’s call
You give up yourself when you truly give
Possessions shouldn’t rule the life you live
Work with love and love your work
And idle man is a stranger on earth
Blame yourself for wrong deeds done
The innocent can be the guilty ones
Freedom disguises itself in chains
Happiness sometimes hides in pain
Children are made and are born to you
But they’re not slaves that belong to you
God doesn’t listen to the words you pray
He hears what your heart has got to say
[Outro]
I dream of the prophet man from a far distant land
Ali!
I dream of the prophet man from a far distant land
Firefly from A Song for You, which features Street as lead singer, is a slow, dreamy and romantic R&B ballad with tons of strings, a huge chorus and the fantastic bass vocal of Melvin Franklin backing him up.
Papa Was a Rollin' Stone is probably the most well known and popular of all of the The Temptations songs and justifiably so. It was pre-disco and I remember dancing to the radio edit played on jukeboxes in the bars; a couple of years later when disco came in the longer version from the album was played. I'm sure many will forever remember smoke-filled nights (sometimes afternoons) of floating in a haze of dreamland bliss while hearing Street's vocal and the trippy psychedelic effects of the song carry them to heights of happy and sometimes sexual pleasure which seemed to last forever, well, at almost fourteen minutes long, it seems forever even when NOT high!
Happy People and Glasshouse are great funk dance tunes, the latter a bit faster. I remember dancing to them in the bars where it was against the law to dance (discos were still a couple of years away).
Richard Street was the first member to actually have been born (1942) and raised in Motown (Detroit, Michigan).
The Temptations w/Richard Street (left)
Street was the lead singer of Otis Williams & the Distants, which also included future Temptations Otis Williams, Melvin Franklin who was Street's cousin, and Elbridge "Al" Bryant. Williams, Franklin and Bryant, later formed The Temptations with Eddie Kendricks and Paul Williams.
He acted in two films, in 1987, Happy New Year, which starred Peter Falk, with a score by Bill Conti and a cover of the song I Only Have Eyes for You performed by The Temptations. In 2006, he appeared in Glory Road which was based on a true story surrounding the events leading to the 1966 NCAA University Division Basketball Championship; Jon Voight starred and the score was composed and orchestrated by musician Trevor Rabin. Street appeared in, Derrick in 1974. This was a German TV crime series produced between 1974 and 1998 starring Horst Tappert as the Detective Chief Inspector. Derrick is considered to be one of the most successful television
programmes in German television history, it was also a major
international success and the series was sold in over 100 countries.
On May 2, 2013 ZDF announced it would no longer carry reruns of the show,
after it emerged that Tappert had been untruthful in discussing his
service in the Waffen-SS in World War II.
In 1998, NBC aired The Temptations, a four-hour television miniseries based upon an autobiographical book by Otis Williams. Street was portrayed by actor J. August Richards.
Richard Street died on Friday, February 27, 2013, in Las Vegas, Nevada of a pulmonary embolism; after suffering back pain and breathing difficulties doctors found a clot in his lung. His death occurred nine days after the death of fellow former Temptation Damon Harris. Street is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Cypress, Orange County, California.
At the time of his death, Street was completing his autobiography, Ball of Confusion (referring to The Temptations song Ball of Confusion (That's What the World is Today),
which Street did not appear on as he joined The Temptations in 1971,
the year after it was released). Completed by his co-author, Gary
Flanigan, Ball of Confusion: My Life as a Temptin' Temptation was published in 2014. It is the second autobiographical account of The Temptations, the first being the Otis Williams Temptations book from 1988.
Track listing:
Side one
- "Happy People" – 3:38 (Lionel Richie, Jeffrey Bowen, Donald Baldwin) ((lead singer: Dennis Edwards)
- "Glasshouse" – 3:54 (Charlemagne) (lead singers: Dennis Edwards, Damon Harris, Richard Street, Otis Williams, Melvin Franklin)
- "Shakey Ground" – 4:03 (Eddie Hazel, Al Boyd, Bowen) (lead singer: Dennis Edwards)
- "The Prophet" – 4:28 (Bowen, Kathy Wakefield, Larry Duncan) (lead singer: Melvin Franklin)
- "Happy People" (Instrumental) – 2:57 (Richie, Bowen, Baldwin)
Side two
- "A Song for You" – 4:40 (Leon Russell) (lead singer: Dennis Edwards)
- "Memories" – 6:01 (Baldwin, Wakefield, Bowen) (lead singer: Dennis Edwards)
- "I'm a Bachelor" (Dennis Edwards, Otis Williams, Damon Harris, Richard Street, Melvin Franklin) – 4:21 (lead singer: Dennis Edwards)
- "Firefly" – 4:02 (Jesse Boyce) (lead singers: Richard Street, Melvin Franklin)
Personnel:
- Dennis Edwards - vocals
- Damon Harris - vocals
- Richard Street - vocals
- Melvin Franklin - vocals
- Otis Williams - vocals
- Berry Gordy - producer
- Jeffrey Bowen - producer
- Donald Charles Baldwin - co-songwriter: ("Happy People", "Memories"), piano, clavinet, Moog, soprano saxophone solo on "Shakey Ground"
- The Commodores - tape loop on "Happy People"
- Lionel Richie - co-songwriter: ("Happy People")
- Eddie Hazel - co-songwriter: ("Shakey Ground"), guitar
- Melvin "Wah-Wah" Ragin - guitar
- Ollie Brown, James Gadson, Zachary Frazier - drums
- William "Billy Bass" Nelson - bass guitar
Label: Gordy – G6-969S1
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Flip-Back + Die-cut sleeve
Country: US
Released: 1975
Genre: Funk / Soul
Style: Soul, Disco
Otis Williams
Net links:
NY Daily News ~ Richard Street, Temptations singer, dies at 70
YouTube links:
Rare Earth ~ Ma (17 mins., 10 secs.)
The Temptations ~
Papa Was a Rolling Stone (11:50)
The Prophet (13:34)
Shakey Ground full album (42:28)
