Could David have pulled it off?

[lockhartgary]

Hi everyone,
I have a question that my older brother and I have discussed in the past and I want to get other opinions.

Let's suppose that David never left the Temps. Do you think that he would have successfully handled the material Dennis sang lead or do you think the Temps would have continued doing the same style of songs that David was doing?

[arr&bee]

Oh david would've handled em with ease,he could sing anything and norman was already about to move in that direction before david left.

[marv2]

Yes,yes, yes! David could have done those Dennis numbers and they would have been hits!

[supremester]

It's a great question since both are at the top of the field. Of course, vocally David was equal to Dennis, however, as a vocalist, I don't think David had the chops to do Dennis' parts on Cloud Nine or Ball Of Confusion. Dennis articulates much better with rapid fire lyrics.

[vgalindo]

Yes he could. Love David Ruffin. He had one of the best voices and they would have continued to have many more hits with him.

[StuBass1]

Interesting topic which I think was discussed years ago as I recall...David and Dennis had roughly the same number of top 10 charted pop songs during their respective tenure with the Temptations. David has a slight edge on #1 R&B chart positions. Also true that Norman was given the job of updating their sound to keep pace with the changing trends in pop/rock music and would have likely gone in the same direction with David or Dennis on 2nd tenor leads. Supremester doe bring up an interesting point however, and there were definite stylistic differences between David and Dennis. David was more comfortable, I believe, singing ballads while Dennis thrived on the more up-tempo material...and David never really did a lot of the socially conscious stuff as a solo artist and focused more and more on his go to love song ballad material. Could David have pulled it off??? Possibly, but I personally believe that the psychedelic Whitfield material was a better fit for Dennis than it would have been for David...

[captainjames]

hell yess David could sing anything !!!

[Bluebrock]

I think David could have sung just about anything but his forte was without doubt the ballads. He excelled on them but equally Dennis was splendid on the lyrically socially aware songs of the Whitfield era. Whichever way you look at we are dealing with two vocal maestros here.

[lockhartgary]

I think David could have sung just about anything but his forte was without doubt the ballads. He excelled on them but equally Dennis was splendid on the lyrically socially aware songs of the Whitfield era. Whichever way you look at we are dealing with two vocal maestros here.

This is the what I told my brother when we had our discussions. I agree that David could have sung anything, but Dennis, in my opinion, had the edge on the social commentary stuff. David was the ballad master!!

[arr&bee]

umm hello over here......LOOK I'LL KEEP IT SIMPLE,NORMAN WROTE IT DAVID WOULD'VE SUNG IT AND THEY STILL WOULD'VE SOLD A MILLION...THIS IS DAVID RUFFIN PEOPLE THOSE OF YOU OLD TEMPTAHOLICS KNOW I'M RIGHT,NUF SAID!!!

[lockhartgary]

Arr&bee, I can see you are a big David Ruffin fan. I love his stuff too. The man could have sung "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and made it work, and there is no denying that. And I agree that had David stayed, the hits would have kept coming. My question was aimed more at people's opinions on whether David would have done as good a job or better than Dennis did. Strictly opinions. I am sorry if I stepped on anyone's toes.

[arr&bee]

Hey,lockhart no harm done we[temptaholics]don't go to war over things and everyone is entitled to thier opinion,i guess folks mean that dennis had the more[gosple]that old time gosple sound than did david and i agree,i'm just stating that david would've sung those pyschadelic songs with no problems.

[marv2]

Hey,lockhart no harm done we[temptaholics]don't go to war over things and everyone is entitled to thier opinion,i guess folks mean that dennis had the more[gosple]that old time gosple sound than did david and i agree,i'm just stating that david would've sung those pyschadelic songs with no problems.

A better question probably would have been could old "Iron Throat", Marvin Junior of the Dells do it?

[midnightman]

I honestly don't know. David was more comfortable singing ballads than the uptempo numbers [[though he got down with it on "I Know [[I'm Losing You)").

I feel it was fate that led to what happened happen. Not saying Ruff wouldn't have done it, but it's always a question as to if he and Norman Whitfield would've bumped heads more often than Norman did with Marvin [[and the Temptations in later years).