Temptations 1981 Album Produced by Thom Bell

[woodward]

I was reading Mark Ribowsky's book today Ain't Too Proud to Beg and discovered a surprise. In 1981 the Temptations produced an album that was recorded at the Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia which Thom Bell produced. The album is called THE TEMPTATIONS, Gordy G8-1006M1.

Just wondering if anyone has this album in their collection and what their opinion is of the songs included. The author did not give it a glaring recommendation but I am interested because of Thom Bell's involvement.

Thanks for any help you can give.

[Mark Desjardines]

Your post got me curious about this Temptations album and I found the following review submitted by Andre S. Grindle, which is well thought out.
"During the mid 70's,Thom Bell had been the mastermind behind the most romantic side of the Philly sound by helming productions from The Stylistics and The Spinners during their salad years. Being these bands were directly out of the Temptations school of versatile soul vocal groups? The Tempts elected to expand on their early 80's comeback to Motown by working with Thom Bell as the producer of their 1981 album. This was a rather hard to find album for years until Motown apparently re-pressed it during the recent vinyl boom and I got a hold of a copy on discount. It was nothing at all like anything I'd have expected it to be.

"Aiming At Your Heart" is one of those opening songs the Tempts likely hoped for-a swinging rhythm guitar,string laden mid tempo jazz-funk/pop type number in a somewhat Luther Vandross school. "Ready,Willing And Able" and the bass synthesizer powered "What Else" are right there in the same stylistic league. "Evil Woman [[Gonna Take Your Love)" and "The Best Of Both Worlds" both come out of the box with churning,slick dance-pop/rock type numbers with heavy bass and melodic keyboard textures. "Open Their Eyes" is a somewhat secularized gospel number with a folky,almost madrigal ballad style of instrumentation. "Oh What A Night" is a very catchy,melodic guitar fueled rock 'n soul uptempo number while "The Life Of A Cowboy" is a heavily arranged country-pop ballad. "Just Ain't Havin Fun" is a chunky, full on 12 bar rhythm & blues shuffle with strong amped up lead guitars while "Your Love Is Magic" concludes the album with a strong post disco uptempo number."

[woodward]

Mark: Thank you for this excellent review of the album. He certainly covered every one of the ten songs included. Guess I will purchase it to see for myself. Doesn't sound too inferior, does it? Thanks again. I really appreciate it. Didn't expect such a quick response.

[TomatoTom123]

Hi Bill, I am aware of this album but don't have it and haven't listened to much of it before. I remember it sounding really nice though and liking "Aiming At Your Heart" a lot. Interesting that Motown got Thom Bell to produce as well!

[Ozmo]

I was reading Mark Ribowsky's book today Ain't Too Proud to Beg and discovered a surprise. In 1981 the Temptations produced an album that was recorded at the Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia which Thom Bell produced. The album is called THE TEMPTATIONS, Gordy G8-1006M1.

Just wondering if anyone has this album in their collection and what their opinion is of the songs included. The author did not give it a glaring recommendation but I am interested because of Thom Bell's involvement.

Thanks for any help you can give.

Woodward, this a coincidence, because just last week I got to thinking about this album. I did buy it on it's initial release in 1981 and to be honest, at that time it did not knock me out! I recall thinking that while it was not a bad album it was not the sound that was current at that time [[e.g Rick James, Prince etc) and I didn't give it many plays.

However, last week I listened to a number of the album tracks which are available on the Discogs website and to my much more mature ears they sound really, really good! It has the sound that Thom Bell gave to other albums that he was producing at the time for the likes of Deniece Williams and Phyllis Hyman. I guess that I seriously underestimated this album at the time.

My vinyl copy has long since vanished, but I would love for this album to get a cd release or even a digital download.

[TomatoTom123]

Hey Ozmo, the album is available to download from iTunes! It has not been released as a CD however, I just discovered.

Tried inserting the link to the album in iTunes... didn't work... try searching for 'The Temptations Aiming At Your Heart' in the iTunes store and this will bring up the album.

[TomatoTom123]

I have to say this album is incredibly hard to find online... most definitely because of its ridiculously generic name... I don't get this nonsense... why call an album by a group that have tens of albums to their name the actual group name... did they just give up on album names temporarily or something... I mean, WTF is wrong with calling it Aiming At Your Heart...!?!?!?

[[excuse my rambled anger, lol)

[Ozmo]

Hey Ozmo, the album is available to download from iTunes! It has not been released as a CD however, I just discovered.

Tried inserting the link to the album in iTunes... didn't work... try searching for 'The Temptations Aiming At Your Heart' in the iTunes store and this will bring up the album..

Thanks for the info Tomato Tom. I should have done my research before posting. lol !! I will check it out.

[Boogiedown]

The Temptations feat. Teddy Pendergrass :



OK
Dennis Edwards leading and doing some TP vamping at the end. .

Very nice classy/classic Thom Bell number. Don Reynaldo strings.

[marv2]

This is the only single I remember from the album "Aiming At Your Heart"

[RichyP]

This track stood out for me, not sure for the right reasons

[Laserdk]

This track stood out for me, not sure for the right reasons

This album is nice and has been released as a remastered digital download and sounds just fine and dandy. I've just given up looking for it on US sites but to prove it exists, here you are from the following UK site:-

https://www.7digital.com/artist/the-...485111?h=1&d=1

Ivor

[nabob]

The album is available on Amazon as an mp3 digital download or as individual songs.

https://www.amazon.com/Temptations/d...in%3A625150011

The writing credits are classic: Thom Bell & Linda Creed; Thom Bell & Preston Glass; Jefferson & Simmons.

iTunes was quickly banned as a vendor when their software committed the unforgivable sin of changing covers that had been so carefully placed on created mp3 files and reorganizing the collection.

[RanRan79]

I have to say this album is incredibly hard to find online... most definitely because of its ridiculously generic name... I don't get this nonsense... why call an album by a group that have tens of albums to their name the actual group name... did they just give up on album names temporarily or something... I mean, WTF is wrong with calling it Aiming At Your Heart...!?!?!?

[[excuse my rambled anger, lol)

Tom, everybody and their mother back then had a self titled album. I think it was just the thing to do. Personally I like the idea of one album having so simple a title. [[But in the case of Diana Ross, who had two Diana Ross,two Ross, and one Diana album, one does have to ask the wtf was going on there. This chick loved her name, apparently.)

Back to the Tempts, "Oh What a Night" is a song I keep in rotation. I really dig that one.

[TomatoTom123]

Tom, everybody and their mother back then had a self titled album. I think it was just the thing to do. Personally I like the idea of one album having so simple a title. [[But in the case of Diana Ross, who had two Diana Ross,two Ross, and one Diana album, one does have to ask the wtf was going on there. This chick loved her name, apparently.)

Back to the Tempts, "Oh What a Night" is a song I keep in rotation. I really dig that one.

'everybody and their mother had a self-titled album'... lol

Mmm, I agree RanRan, I don't mind a nice self-titled album... but when you're 20 albums in and the LP scores no hits, becomes unknown and unheard of, the darn ting is so hard to find! Lol

And yep, with Diana it was just eponymousity [[not a word) OTT ... also with the group Faith, Hope & Charity, three of their five albums are all called, um, Faith, Hope & Charity, which is, quite frankly, ridiculous!

[TomatoTom123]

This album is nice and has been released as a remastered digital download and sounds just fine and dandy. I've just given up looking for it on US sites but to prove it exists, here you are from the following UK site:-

https://www.7digital.com/artist/the-...485111?h=1&d=1

Ivor

Hey Ivor, thanks for that link! That's a great price, half the cost of an iTunes download!!! I don't mind digital download only either, as long as the sound quality is good.

[soulwally]

I love the Tempts and I love Thom Bell... that's why I got the album and was hoping for great things. Instead I got merely good things. the standout track by a mile is the A side of the single Aiming At Your Heart, with Richard Street and Glenn Leonard trading leads. The longer album version gets a little repetitive, I prefer the single version. The flip Oh What A Night also features Richard, so no place on the single for Dennis. It was the only single from the album and made 67 pop and 36 R&B. The next single was to be Standing On the Top, which went only one place higher pop but fared much better R&B and is arguably a better-remembered song.

[BayouMotownMan]

I bought the lp upon its release, listened to it once then put it away. It was ill conceived as the Tempts were no longer hot artists and Bell was no longer a hot producer, so the outcome was somewhat desperate. Motown was clearly not impressed and gave it no promotion. Two singles Aiming At You Heart and Oh What A Night did little.

[Bluebrock]

I was reading Mark Ribowsky's book today Ain't Too Proud to Beg and discovered a surprise. In 1981 the Temptations produced an album that was recorded at the Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia which Thom Bell produced. The album is called THE TEMPTATIONS, Gordy G8-1006M1.

Just wondering if anyone has this album in their collection and what their opinion is of the songs included. The author did not give it a glaring recommendation but I am interested because of Thom Bell's involvement.

Thanks for any help you can give.

I bought this album upon it's release as i did every Temps album of this period. I thought they released some of their most consistent albums during this particular time. Generally speaking i thought it was pretty good with one or two notable exceptions. Aiming at your heart remains very popular at UK soul nights.