David Ruffin unreleased vocals from DRATS JOIN TEMPTATIONS ALBUM

[honest man]

Hello reading A'int to proud to beg book,up to David gone ,i see Dennis recorded over David's vocals on this album,i wonder if original vocals exist,what a find that would be,PLEASE......................................... .

[Jimi LaLumia]

wow, YES, would love to hear this...

[RossHolloway]

What? Why am I just now hearing about this? Is this true? Can anyone confirm this? When did the Join album first come into being? When exactly did David leave the Temptations? When did work actually begin on this album?

[snakepit]

Looking at some of the titles on the album [[DFTMC) tracks were 'completed' during July- Sept 1968...........so early vocals may have been overdubbed ....it's possible.

[Motown Andy]

Mark R's books are loaded with inaccuracies. He has no access to the session logs which do not support his claim. When we did the Supremes & Temptations Joined Together set, I found no evidence of David recording anything from these sessions. The two groups appeared together [[with David) in November 1967. David left the group between February and March 1968. The basic tracks weren't cut until May, with the exception of Ain't No Mountain High Enough, which although it was cut in March, the first vocal session for that song was in May. Coincidentally, it was Dennis' first recorded studio lead officially as a Temptation. I don't put much stock into any of Mark's books.

[franjoy56]

is that the same Mark R who wrote the Supremes' Sage of Motown Dreams.

[tallone]

Motown Andy,
You happen to be 100% correct in your assesment of this part of The Temptations history. Where this Mark R gets his facts from is a mystery to me and probably to him as well.

[Penny]

Motown Andy,
You happen to be 100% correct in your assesment of this part of The Temptations history. Where this Mark R gets his facts from is a mystery to me and probably to him as well.

It is the same way on this board. Where some of these people get their facts is beyond me. Others can dispute the information shared and still some won't back down from their supposed knowledge. I guess everyone is entitled to their opinion. Myself I rely on Andy and the others who actually work with the product.

Penny:o

[jobeterob]

Mark R must be Mark Ribowsky. He's written a book on everything and everybody Motown and it's all "salacious".

Ya Andy. A man with guts and balls. And George too, who also has stood up and set the historical record straight.

Good work men.

[BayouMotownMan]

Ribowsky is so bogus that I don't know where to start. He tried to solicit me to help him with research on his so called Supremes book. I caught him in three lies during the first conversation.

David Ruffin was terminated shortly after the release of I Could Never Love Another [[After Loving You). One of the reasons Motown issued Please Return Your Love To Me as the third single from Wish It Would Rain was that it featured Eddie Kendricks and they were trying to take the attention away from Ruffin. At this point it didn't even look as though Ruffin was going to stay with Motown. Finally, Whitfield came upon the brilliant idea, at the urging of Otis Williams, of featuring all the Tempts on the recordings so as not to invent another messy situation where a lead singer got swell headed. Thus for the next several singles more than one lead was utilized.

The idea of a joint Supremes/Temptations lp started with the pairing of the two groups on the Mike Douglas show in '66. Ruffin wanted billing similar to Ross. Can you imagine the title of that lp if he had gotten his way? Diana Ross & The Supremes Join David Ruffin & The Temptations. Try to get all that on a cassette label. LOL

[honest man]

[QUOTE=BayouMotownMan;130082]Ribowsky is so bogus, OMG this book is going from bad to worse the Author says throughout book about David Womanising ,Now into later chapters this fool is saYing it was well known That D avid And Eddie were gay,the man is a lunatic will be binning this book from now, so bad. cheers.

[BayouMotownMan]

Ribowsky says Ruffin and Kendricks were gay?

[honest man]

Ribowsky says Ruffin and Kendricks were gay? yes he says there was speculation about both being gay,[not with each other, i don't think] crazy,

[BayouMotownMan]

I had heard Eddie was maybe bi but not Ruffin. Nowhere close.

In the drug world however, when you are high.....

[jobeterob]

There was recently a post on another thread by Andy where he said Mark R's books are fraught with inaccuracies and errors and are not reliable. Sounds like he has a touch of Tony Turner.

So, likely unwise to rely on anything from Ribowsky.

[smark21]

I have the Ribowsky Supremes book and he cites Tony Turner’s books as sources. However, he calls him Tony “Tucker”.

[franjoy56]

maybe i should return my Supremes book and ask for stamps. LOL.

[BayouMotownMan]

That would be a bargain for you franjoy. LOL

[dvus7]

Ribowsky says Ruffin and Kendricks were gay?

@ bayouMotownMan....I am not here to confirm or deny that statement...BUT if you go to the Dennis Edwards interview...I kinda of got that feeling that Dennis was saying that TOO!!!

[BayouMotownMan]

What Dennis Edwards interview? Something in Ribowsky's book? If so, I refuse to read his garbage, he sensationalizes

[dvus7]

What Dennis Edwards interview? Something in Ribowsky's book? If so, I refuse to read his garbage, he sensationalizes

No, it's an interview on Youtube........ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djjZtVCRBQk&list=FLLqP3wuKdZAnbcP2F_QO08Q&index=62&feature=plpp_video

[blackmoses]

In his autobiography, Otis Williams gives the time of David Ruffin's firing as late June 1968, following a Cleveland, OH engagement for which Ruffin missed one of the shows to see his girlfriend Gail Martin open _her_ act elsewhere. Ribowsky's book gives a very specific date of June 22 for the date Ruffin missed and June 27 for the day of the meeting at Motown where he was fired. While those dates are more or less in line with what Otis recounted in 1988, I know Ribowsky isn't trusted here, so we'll stick with the unspecific late June.

Ruffin's last TV appearance with the Temptations was on The Mike Douglas Show on April 18, 1968, about the time "I Could Never Love Another" was released and just before the "Wish It Would Rain" album was released. As far as Edwards was concerned, although the group more or less knew he was their number one pick for Ruffin's replacement long before they fired Ruffin [[the Ribowsky book paints them as being wishy-washy for over half a year on the issue), Edwards [[according to several of his interviews) had no idea of his fate until Ruffin showed up at his doorstep in the early morning hours the day after he was fired.

Therefore, if we are to believe Ruffin was fired when Otis says he was [[and not sometime in - at the earliest, May) and if we are to also believe Edwards' account of what happened, it is possible - though not proven - that Ruffin was present at the earliest recording sessions for the first Supremes-Temptations joint studio LP. However, there's no aural proof released to the public [[unless someone can attempt to pick him out of the background vocals on some the unreleased tracks that were recorded earlier than most of the final LP lineup), and, according to MotownAndy, no documented proof either [[I will say that it does appear that Ruffin hung around a little longer than February or March 1968 - aside from the April '68 single & LP releases, the group played Baltimore the night MLK died, Apr 4 68 - if Edwards were there, that would have been something he'd've recounted, it being so early in his career with the group and a pretty important moment besides).

As it is, there's only one Edwards lead vocal on the album that had vocal recording sessions before the end of June, and that's "Ain't No Mountain High Enough". Is it not possible Edwards could have recorded his lead the same day the backgrounds were done [[July 31)? That would still make it his first recorded Temptations lead.

[RossHolloway]

I don't know if the liner notes to the single Please Return Your Love to Me/How Can I Forget from TCMS 1968 sheds any light to this time line but it states that on How Can I Forget it's just the Four Temptations singing sans Ruffin and the track was recorded February 9, 1968, overdubs June 29, 1968 and the single itself released July 16, 1968

[hwume]

There are a few archived threads about this and it is clear, after checking back through the recording histories, that Dennis Edwards' lead vocals were the first Temptations leads to be laid down on JOIN and TCB. The David Ruffin-did-them-first story is a myth that circles 'round once in a while.