the tempts...i want a love....

i wanna love i can see. maybe david ruffin couldve have seen love, if he wasnt so busy snortin coke & callin women "bitches" all of the time.



the "tempting" temptations started as a group with motown 5 years before they scored their 1st top 40 hit in 1964 with "the way you do the things you do". but before that song, they worked as studio backups for smokey, marvin gaye, & the supremes, etc. they were the known as the experimental group that would be thrown into the studio & given random cuts to record as marketing try-outs. they were running into a rut until a song was introduced to them & helped establish a marketable style for the group. "i want a love i can see" was a single that was released in 1963 but never made it on the pop charts. i think it actually reached #79 which is shameful. this song was written by non-other than smokey robinson and has stood to remain one of my favorite songs written by him. it has this spanish harlem style that represents the sound better than the actual titled song, sang by ben e. king (spanish harlem, 1961). although crisco clean, as motown always is, it is rare to the motorcity sound. almost sounds like it belongs to stax records, made to be promoted in the bronx or brooklyn heights...so what... it never made it commercially and it was a lost effort.... but it is not forgotten. finders-keepers!!!