“I said, ‘Well, they’re doing something that we should try and check out.’ Me and the Tempts went out of town, came back, and he’d recorded the track to ‘Cloud Nine.’ And I had to tease him. And I said, ‘Norman, have you heard of this group called Sly And The Family Stone?’ He said, ‘Nah man, I haven’t heard of no damn group called Sly And The Family Stone.’ At this time, exit David Ruffin, enter Dennis Edwards. “So impressed was I that I went back to Detroit and I told Norman.

And I said, ‘Who the hell is that? I ain’t never heard nothing like that.’ It was ‘Dance To The Music.’ We heard this young group come on the radio and it cut into our conversation. “The Tempts were in New York City,” Otis remembered, “and my good friend Kenny Gamble, of Gamble and Huff, and I were talking. Though Whitfield was, at first, stubbornly resistant to any relevance their sound could have to the Tempts, he would soon change his tune. ‘Let’s go in and make this here hit’īy now, Williams was more than aware of Sly And The Family Stone’s urgent, fresh, and hedonistic interpretation of the language of soul. Penzabene’s role as Whitfield and Strong’s collaborator was taken by Barbara Neely, and a No.4 R&B hit was the result. The group’s third single of 1968, “Please Return Your Love To Me,” was their last with David Ruffin in the line-up, but he took a back seat this time to Eddie Kendricks’ lead vocals.

It was followed by the eighth, the same team’s “I Could Never Love Another (After Loving You),” which hit the top spot in July. They began the year with the superior, polished soul of Whitfield, Strong, and Rodger Penzabene’s “I Wish It Would Rain,” which became their seventh R&B No.1, in February. The dramatic change in the Temptations’ sound brought about by the single is right there in the grooves of their 1968 release schedule.

Make everyday a cloud nine meaning