I’ve never likened to the saying ‘There will always be a Temptations’. Apart from being totally inaccurate most serious Temps fans will tell you that the real group was the once consisting of Otis/Paul/Eddie/David/Melvin. The group has had more line-up changes than I’ve had hot dinners and whilst I have witnessed them live on many occasions there will never be a period like of the era 1964-1968.

However, this CD concentrates on their ‘psych’ era of 1969-1974 which in fairness created as many hits for them as they had enjoyed ten years previous. It all started for them in late 1968 with the issue of ‘Cloud Nine’ which sold a million for the band and started a five year stretch of such ‘psych’ hits. All these hits are included here such as ‘I Can’t Get Next To You’ ‘Ball of Confusion’ and ‘Psychedelic Shack’ but to name a couple. All these songs were far removed from the Temp’s sound of the middle sixties, but all contained those strong social comment lyrics that Curtis Mayfield was experiencing with at that time.

In 1973 the best track on this CD was unleashed in the form of ‘Papa Was A Rolling Stone’ one of the funk classics of all-time and Dennis Edwards’ opening line cuts like a hot knife through butter.

Early 1974 and the dancefloor favourite of the day ‘Law of the Land’ hit the charts and still sounds good today. The evocative mood of the Motown session men can be found on the first couple of minutes on ‘Masterpiece’ from the LP of the same name.

The real winner for me has to be ‘Happy People’ a great dance track from 1975 proving that the Temp’s were keeping up with the Jones’ (excuse the pun) A brilliant track for inclusion on this CD has to be ‘You’ve Got My Soul On Fire’ from the ‘1990’ LP of 1973. Wah Wah guitars in abundance. A lot of these titles are available on other compilations but there are a few LP tracks thrown in for good measure.

Personal rating 5/10
Expect to pay £6.99 in the UK
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