Dennis Edwards Articles

[BeesNVMe]

Queenie...here are a couple of old articles about Dennis since you were inquiring about him lately.

Full text of archived story
A `TEMP' TALKS ABOUT `HIS GIRL'
DENNIS EDWARDS: MAKE TIME FOR LOVE

By Chris Dickinson
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
November 24, 1996
Section: EVERYDAY MAGAZINE
Edition: FIVE STAR LIFT
Page 4C
THERE are few folks better versed in the power of the love song than Dennis Edwards. The St. Louis-based singer joined the legendary soul/R & B group the Temptations in the late '60s, is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and still performs many of the Temps' greatest signature love songs, including "My Girl" and "Just My Imagination."



As fate would have it, Edwards called to talk about love songs on the night of his first wedding anniversary to wife Rosemary. "One year," laughs the happy Edwards over the phone. "Sometimes with women it's hard to get two."



Edwards cites Leon Russell's "A Song for You" as a number that holds great personal emotional weight.

"I thought this song was sung mostly for entertainers," he explains. "The song says `I've been all over the world, but now I'm singing to you.' Being an entertainer, that meant a lot to me. We traveled all over the world, sang to all these people, but when you're gone a lot, it's hard to hang on to a relationship.

"In my life, up until now, I haven't been happy in a relationship. I was always gone, meeting new people. I must admit, me and my wife think about it all the time. I have to make money, but I'm away for three months. You have to get reacquantied again."

In terms of current talent on the scene, Edwards cites contemporary R & B powerhouse Babyface as a man who knows how to deliver on the emotional front. As for the past, he tips his hat to a late legend that has seldom been matched.

"Marvin Gaye had so many aspects to his music - he wrote about messages and the times and drugs," Edwards says. "But when Marvin wrote a love song, it was significant. Also, Barbra Streisand, as a deliverer of the greatest love songs, has a tremendous vocal understanding about her range."

Through his friendship with the late Temptations singer David Ruffin, Edwards also witnessed firsthand an artist who drew inspiration from the deep, troubled well of his own life.

Ruffin was born into poverty, abandoned at 2 years old, and struggled fo r years with a devastating drug problem. Not a pretty personal picture, but Ruffin ruled when it came to expressing himself in song.

"David was a troubled young man, a great stylist as far as taking a song and making it a part of him," Edwards remembers. "He had lots of failed relationships with women, the whole thing. But the public looked at him as a great love singer."

It's frequently an element of tragedy that elevates a good love song into a great one. While a boy-gets-girl song can be nice, it's often the boy-loses-girl song that resonates most deeply. Ruffin could do both with passion.

"David sang tragic songs better than anyone - "I Wish It Would Rain," "Ain't Too Proud to Beg," says Edwards. "He went through a life of hard times, and it reflected in everything he sang. You could feel the hurt in his voice. There was so much power in it. When David used to plead in a song, the audience could just feel it."

As for the sweet side, it's been said that more than a few babies were conceived to the romantic strains of the Temptations' "My Girl."

"Sometimes (love songs) give people a false sense of security. But why shouldn't we have that for a few minutes? Put `My Girl' on, make love to your wife. The bills are still there, so why not have pleasure for a little while?"

[BeesNVMe]

WOULD I TALK TO THE LEAD TEMPTATION?

By Gregory Freeman
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
September 2, 1994
Section: WAR PAGE
Edition: FIVE STAR
Page 13D
THE CALL came in.



Would I be interested in meeting Dennis Edwards? The name brought back memories.



Papa was a rolling stone,

Wherever he laid his hat was his home,

And when he died, all he left us was alone.

Edwards was the lead singer of the Temptations back when I was in high school. I don't know how many times I sang along with my 45s to those songs, pretending I was the lead singer.

Back in the '70s, Dennis Edwards was an icon to teen-age boys like me.

So would I like to meet him?

Yes, I replied, without hesitation.

I wasn't disappointed. He hasn't changed much.

And he's tall. Six-foot-four.

"All of the Temptations were the same height," he said, explaining that Motown thought the height enhanced the dance steps that the group is so famous for.

Edwards was with the Temptations from 1968 to 1988, although he left the group a couple of times to go solo. In addition to being lead singer on "Papa Was a Rolling Stone," he also led "Heard It Through the Grapevine," "Psychedelic Shack," "Ball of Confusion," "Can't Get Next to You" and countless others.

Edwards - who now lives in St. Louis - began his career in the 1960s in Detroit, singing in a nightclub with a group called Dennis Edwards and the Firebirds. There he met and became friends with many of the stars of Motown, and eventually had the opportunity to audition before Motown owner Berry Gordy.

Gordy liked Edwards and put him on a $250-a-week retainer.

At first, that was fine with Edwards. But as time passed, he got restless. After two years, he said, "I didn't want the retainer anymore. I wanted to sing. I was ready to ask Motown to let me out."

That was before opportunity - in the form of Temptations lead singer David Ruffin - knocked on his door early one morning.

Ruffin was at Edwards' door at 4 a.m., telling him that he'd blown it. Motown had decided to let Ruffin go because of an addiction to drugs and other problems he had.

"He told me that he wanted me to take his place," Edwards said.

Edwards didn't want to do it at first because he and Ruffin had become friends. But Ruffin insisted, he said. "David told me, `If you don't do it, they'll get somebody I don't like.' "

The next day, Edwards was tapped as the newest Temptation.

It took a lot of work to be a member of the group. "We'd rehearse seven or eight hours a day on the steps alone," he said. "We'd spend hours on snapping our arms out just right, just at the right time. And that didn't include the time we spent rehearsing the songs."

Edwards was a bit intimidated at first, being a member of one of America's most famous groups. He initially worried about how audiences would accept him. His worries were over, though, when the group won a Grammy for "Cloud Nine," the first song that he sang with the Temptations.

He left the group in 1988, after its star had fallen, and he moved to St. Louis. His mother had lost her husband, and he moved back here to be close to her.

Like so many others who went before him, Edwards says he's not a wealthy man. He lives comfortably, he says, but says he never realized the money that people might think.

"I was young when I joined the group," he said. "I didn't know anything about business. I signed on, and the company got me a Cadillac, a really nice house, I thought, `Wow! This is great!' Then, later on, after we'd get paid, I'd wonder: Where's the rest of the money? They'd tell me that they'd subtracted the cost of the house, the car and everything else. Nothing's for free.

"They still do that with the young kids today. I try to let them know that they've got to be careful with money. But when you're young and the company is throwing all these things at you, it's hard."

Edwards still performs. He sings locally, though most of his performing is done out of town, he said.

Will groups like the Temps come back in fashion? Edwards hopes so.

"A lot of the groups now don't even sing," he noted. "But I think singing is starting to come back, and dressing sharp is coming back. One of the groups that I respect a lot is a group called Silk. I saw them perform and thought they were the closest to what we used to do.

"At least until they took off their clothes."


*here's the part when Queenie starts asking more questions

[Eddiesluv]

Bees how did you find those articles. I was looking for an article that Greg Freeman wrote on Eddie Kendrick and couldn't find it. Did you find them online?

[Queenie]

You are right BEE,, I have a lot of questions but, I will let rest for a day.


This weekend it is on..

[BeesNVMe]

Eddiesluv said:

Bees how did you find those articles. I was looking for an article that Greg Freeman wrote on Eddie Kendrick and couldn't find it. Did you find them online?

Eddiesluv, someone sent the articles to me in an email. It appears they got them from a newspaper archive. I will ask how the found the article and let you know.

[Eddiesluv]

BeesNVMe said:

Eddiesluv, someone sent the articles to me in an email. It appears they got them from a newspaper archive. I will ask how the found the article and let you know.

Thanks Bees.