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- [00:05]
Jake Brennan
Double Elvis. I think the last time I spoke to you guys about Quints, I told you about the transit quilted duffel bag that I got for my wife. Well, I got myself a Napa leather duffel bag from Quince as well, and I just used it. We used both our bags on this family trip that we took out west. I love this bag. Okay? It looks cool, it looks casual. It looks way more expensive than it is. Not that I care about that, but it just, it's good quality and you can kind of tell when you just look at it. I stuffed it with my new double brush stretch jacket from Quince. You know, when you're, you're going out to dinner, it's summertime, it's too hot to wear a jacket, but you're going somewhere kind of dressy, but you don't want to wear a blazer. You're kind of in that sort of formal fashion. No man's land. That's where the double brushed stretch jacket from Quints comes into play. It dresses you up casually and smartly and you can rock it out around town as well if you're just, you know, running errands and you want to look good. This jacket is my new favorite addition to my wardrobe. And like I said, it along with my Go to Quince merino all season base tees fit perfectly in my Nappa leather duffel bag from Quince. The best part of all this, everything with Quints is half the cost of similar brands. Okay? That's important. That matters. And they can do this because they work directly with top artisans. They cut out the middlemen and Quints gives you luxury pieces without the markup. So keep it classic and cool with long lasting staples. From quints go to quints.com disgraceland for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N C E.com disgraceland to get free shipping and 365 day returns quints.com disgraceland.
- [01:48]
Unknown Speaker 1
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- [01:57]
Unknown Speaker 2
Amazon prime isn't just fast free delivery, though to be honest, that's a lifesaver. It's also prime video, Amazon music, and so much more.
- [02:08]
Unknown Speaker 1
Whatever the interest, it's on Prime.
- [02:10]
Unknown Speaker 2
Lately there's been a dive into new recipes, catching up on lifestyle documentaries and building the perfect playlist to match. And prime has been part of it all.
- [02:19]
Unknown Speaker 1
It's like a one stop shop for any passion, whether it's fashion, food, family, or discovering the next favorite show.
- [02:25]
Unknown Speaker 2
So for anyone always exploring something new or rediscovering something meaningful, prime is right there.
- [02:31]
Unknown Speaker 1
Whatever you're into, it's on Prime.
- [02:33]
Unknown Speaker 2
From streaming to shopping, it's on Prime.
- [02:36]
Unknown Speaker 1
Visit Amazon.comprime to get more out of.
- [02:39]
Unknown Speaker 2
Whatever you're into Amazon.comprime this episode contains.
- [02:44]
Jake Brennan
Content that may be disturbing to some listeners. Please check the show notes for more information. Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis the stories about the Temptations are insane. They are one of the most successful and beloved R B groups of all time, despite the fact that group members were tragically corrupted by fame and drugs. David Ruffin in particular battled a 20 plus year cocaine habit. His ego was so huge that he rode in a private mink lined car and hired his own manager and bodyguard. He was so volatile that it's been long rumored that he was responsible for the most tragic death in Motown history. And he was so paranoid that he believed the death of a fellow Temptation was not an accident, but a warning to those like him who dared disrupt the flow of Motown's famed Factory line. The Temptations made great music from their Classic 5 lineup with David Ruffin to the psychedelic soul made with Dennis Edwards. Great music. Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Melotron called Milk Milk Promenade MK1. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to the Morning after by Maureen McGovern. And why would I play you that specific slice of noni New Year's cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on August 17, 1973. And that was the day the Temptation Paul Williams was found dead outside his car in Detroit. A death that would raise many questions and stoke many conspiracy theories. On this episode, cocaine tall egos mink lined cars, disrupting Motown's flow. In the Temptations, I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgrace. The dollar bill was old. It smelled like oil and sweat. David Ruffin rolled it up with his fingers and then used it to do a line off the table. He tasted iron at the back of his throat. If his nose was about to geyser blood all over the place, so be it. It would take his mind off the things he didn't want to think about. There was plenty he could stand to forget, like his third solo record. It was finished, but Motown Records wasn't going to release it. David Ruffin had once been a surefire moneymaker, but his solo singles as of late were a series of diminishing returns. And the venerable Detroit label didn't pump cash and resources into diminishing returns. Back when David Ruffin was a member of the Temptations, he was a star. Otis Williams may have been the leader of the group, but David Ruffin stood out not just because he was tall as and not just for his trademark horn rimmed glasses. David Ruffin had a gravelly, gruff voice imbued with sadness, longing and sex on fuego. Daryl hall of Hall Notes would later described the voice behind Ain't Too Proud to Beg My Girl in I Know I'm Losing youg as crying in Tune. David Ruffin's voice was so robust it made other singers like Marvin Gaye, want to up their game. When David replaced original temptation al Bryant in 1964, his voice was just the thing the band had been missing. And although the Temptations had their syncopated dance steps down, including the high stepping signature move called the Temptation Walk, David always took it one step higher. He tossed the mic in the air, spun around in a 360 sweep, dropped down to his knees and rebounded like an elastic band. As a temptation, David Ruffin was the star of the show. And to be the star, you had to be ready. You had to be ready for the attention, the applause, the fun fame. If you weren't ready, then you had to get ready. The green shark skin suit gave you some confidence. But even better was the pre show gin and soda. Make it a double. Are you ready now? Fee 5 fo fum baby better best believe it. You're ready. And then after you kill the show, when you walk backstage all sweaty and you're still riding that high of adrenaline and applause and the way those women stared at the bulge shifting around inside your tight pants. You want that feeling to go all night. So cue the cocaine. Coke kept the high, real high. And you were number one on the R and B charts. Big fucking deal. You're number one tonight. Every night up on that stage, at the after party, in the hotel room, between the sheets. Fiddley D fiddley dum motherfuckers. And last but not least, after the coke had worn off and the first rays of the sun peeked out over the horizon, the pills were clutch. They made your eyelids heavy in your slumber deep. The next day, you do it all over again. But that was 1967. Now it was 1970 and David Ruffin was no longer A Temptation. Hadn't been for two years. These days, the gin and soda just got him drunk. And the pills no longer had an effect on his sleep patterns. And the cocaine. The cocaine just made him paranoid. David looked across the table of his Detroit apartment at Eddie Kendricks. He passed the old rolled up dollar bill to his former bandmate. Eddie had been a Temptation long before David was hired. He'd been there when the vocal group first auditioned at Motown. Under the name the Elgins. Eddie had the smoothest voice in the Temptations. The one that people would always call a falsetto. Even though technically he was a natural tenor. That's his voice leading smash hits like the way you do the things you do and Get Ready. And unlike other members of the group, Eddie stayed in touch with David. Even after he'd been canned in 1968. Eddie knew he should be angry at David. David big timed the whole band. When the Temptations got famous, they found themselves with more money than they'd ever laid eyes on. And naturally, they spent it. They bought nice clothes, nice houses and nice cars. But David didn't just buy any car. He bought a stretch El Camino convertible. With white mink seat covers. And white mink floor mats on the inside. With his name and face plastered on the doors. And then he hired his own manager. And then he hired his own bodyguard. When he saw how Diana Ross managed to get the official name of the Supremes changed to Diana Ross and the Supremes. David tried to pull the same shit. Forget drugs, man. It was fame that fucked up David Ruffin. At least at first it did. And when David became too important to even show up to concerts. That's when the decision to cut him loose became a very easy one. Still, in Eddie's mind, time healed some, if not all, wounds. Plus, David had insight into the interpersonal dynamics of the Temptations. Plus what it was like to go it alone in the Motown machine. That was valuable intel for Eddie. Eddie was at a crossroads with his career. Should he continue being a Temptation? Should he strike out on his own? He needed the unique counsel of someone like David Ruffin. Plus, David had the good dough. Eddie's issue was this. He didn't think the Temptations were being treated fairly. In fact, he was pretty sure they were being fucked six ways to Sunday by the Motown brass. But Eddie was the quiet temptation. He rarely spoke up, kept on trucking and stayed in line. Until now. Look at Stevie Wonder, man. He turned 21 in May, refused to renew his contract. Just walked away. And then Barry went groveling after him and paid Stevie millions. Stevie got his. Why can't we get ours? David Ruffin looked through his thick horn rimmed glasses straight into the eyes of Eddie Kendricks. You're right, man, 100%. David hoovered some more blow and kept talking shit, man. We were earning something like 10 grand a night. We didn't see that money, did we? Motherfuckers tossed us 500 a week if we were lucky. But where did the rest of that money go? Here's how it's gonna shake down Barry. Gordy's gonna work you and work you and work you. And then once you're too weak or too angry or you become too unpredictable, he's gonna toss you out. He'll leave you with nothing. And he's gonna have Otis help him. You think Otis is on your side? Look at me, man. Why do you think I'm no longer a temptation? Because Otis threw me under the goddamn bus when it was convenient for him. Same thing is gonna happen to you. You're next, brother. David collected his thoughts as the cocaine invigorated and nauseated him all at once. But if you complain about it, look at what they did to Flo. Flo talked all kinds of shit about what was going down with the Supremes. Barry was all about Diana. Because Barry was fucking Diana. Diana and Mary threw flow to the wolves. Pretty soon she couldn't fit in those tight dresses anymore and that was that. Barry cut her out of the picture faster than James Jameson could lay down a baseline. And then Barry blackballed her, man, industry wide. She went to another label and her records went nowhere. Literally. They weren't distributed, they weren't promoted. Who the does Barry Gordy know to make that happen at another label? What kind of guys is he working with behind the scenes? Because you know that Barry Gordy made that happen. David snorted another line and waited for the burn to subside. He had some big solo hits in the last two years. Well, okay, one hit. Really. My whole world ended the moment you left me went to number nine on the Billboard Hot 100. One hit was far from the glory that the temptations enjoyed. From 1966 to 1971, they'd released 21 singles, all of them hits, and most of them number one or number two on the R and B charts. The Temptations were Motown royalty with or without David Ruffin. Was the shelving of David's third solo album a bad omen of things to come? Had Motown chewed him up? Was Barry Gordy preparing to spit him out? David couldn't help but wonder. He also couldn't help but wonder if finding a way back into the Temptations could stave off the inevitable, revitalize his career, bring him back from the pasture he was being ushered out to. That's how he became a Temptation in the first place. He weaseled his way in. He ain't too proud to beg. But the Temptations were a quintet. In order for David to return, one of them would have to leave. David narrowed his eyes. He passed the dollar bill to Eddie once more and began to talk. And then again. It is a dog eat dog world out there, brother. And you got a good point about Stevie. Maybe the tide is changing. Maybe it is time you made a stand.
- [14:29]
Unknown Speaker 3
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- [15:07]
Jake Brennan
This identity theft was different because this person had messed with the most dangerous type of person that exists, which is someone with limited options and a lot of free time.
- [15:18]
Unknown Speaker 3
For mysteries big and small. Follow and listen to the Moth on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [15:30]
Unknown Speaker 4
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- [16:11]
Jake Brennan
Paul Williams was insistent they had to get back on stage. They could all hear the crowd from their dressing room. The audience was still roaring and the place was electric. But the Temptations had already given three encores. They were physically exhausted. That was Al Bryant's reasoning for putting his foot down. Unlike his bandmate Paul Williams Al was done for the night. And if he was done, then the rest of the Temptations were going to be done, too. Al's reasoning was only partially true, and the rest of the guys knew it. They knew that Al was mostly just pissed that he'd been upstaged that night. Not by any of them. He'd been upstaged by David Ruffin, the skinny guy with the huge voice, who'd recently moved to the Motor City with his brother Jimmy and was spending a lot of time waiting in Motown's Wings for his big shot. David was always around. If he wasn't working over Barry Gordy for a record deal, he was endearing himself to the Temptation's own Melvin Franklin and Otis Williams. On this particular night in October of 1963 at Chappie's Lounge in Detroit, David Ruffin had grown tired of waiting in the wings. His big shot was right there on stage for the taking. So he took it. He literally sprung from the crowd and joined the Temptations on stage. He didn't leave. And no one tried to make him leave either. He sang the songs, he did the moves. He made it look easy. He made it look like he belonged there. The nerve of David Ruffin was trying to bully his way into the Temptations. It infuriated Al Bryant to no end. And it infuriated Al even more when no one else seemed to give a backstage. Paul Williams kept trying to convince the guys that they were obligated to perform a fourth encore. Albert Brian popped the top on a beer bottle and guzzled it. He knew there had been tension in the band for a while. He knew he drank too much. He knew that he was difficult to work with. He knew that the band knew that he drank too much and was difficult to work with. Like three encores. David Ruffin and his stupid glasses. Come on, man. That Al Bryan stared at Paul Williams and took another swig. His eyes seethed with anger and humiliation. Paul kept pleading his case. They were performers and the audience deserved to get their money's worth. Al emptied the rest of the contents of the bottle down his throat. Paul Williams, he thought, talking big, like he can tell me what to do and not to do. Al lifted his arm in the air. Paul Williams is going to rue the day he ran his mouth at Al Bryant. The empty beer bottle felt light and powerful, and Al's hand, with a vengeful thrust, he brought the beer bottle down on Paul's head. At least he intended to hit Paul's head. The bottle caught Paul on the nose and the glass shattered into Paul's face. A shard narrowly missed his eye. Blood spurted from Paul's beak. That settled it. The Temptations were not going out for a fourth encore. It also settled Al Bryan's feet, though his tenure as a Temptation didn't end that day. It wasn't long after, in 1964, that Al was voted out of the group, and David Ruffin was more than ready to take his place. Fiddley D Fiddaley Dumb the classic five era of the Temptations, with tenor David Ruffin, produced a string of hits so strong that it made the group, along with the Supremes, the standard of excellence for Motown. Producers fought over the privilege to work with them. Norman Whitfield, a writer and producer who had been grinding it out at Motown, sometimes on lowly tambourine and other times in the quality control department, even went so far as to challenge Motown genius Smokey Robinson, who had been working with the group since their start in 1966. Smokey was about to release his latest Temptations track, Get Ready. Norman made a bet that if his new Temptations track, Ain't Too Proud to Beg charted higher than Get Ready, then he'd earned the privilege to be the group's primary collaborator. Both songs hit number one on the R and B charts, but Ain't Too Proud to Beg went higher on the Hot 100 all the way to lucky number 13. It wasn't exactly luck for Norman Whitfield. It was an artistic couple, and it would soon pay out massive dividends for him. Motown and the Temptations There were two major events that helped set the stage for the lucrative phase two of both Motown and the Temptations. First, Detroit caught fire. Literally. For five hot days in July of 1967, the city rioted. It all started when Detroit PD's vice squad, most of them white, raided an after hours hours bar and arrested nearly 90 black patrons. Tensions between the white cops and black neighborhoods were already high. Buildings burned, gunshots rang out. National Guard tanks rumbled down streets that resembled a war zone. The iconic Hitsville USA building at 2648 W. Grand Blvd, the one that Barry Gordy had converted into a studio when the Motown Record Corporation was founded, remained unharmed during the chaos. But the social unrest happening outside did make its way inside, most notably when a new Motown artist, an Islam convert named Abdullah, who aligned himself with the Black Power movement, attacked Ralph Seltzer, a white Motown executive with a letter opener. Historically, Motown didn't do politics. Motown wasn't about confrontation. And yes, it's true that Berry Gordy did release Martin Luther King Jr. S famous I have a Dream speech on Wax in 1963. But when it came to the social revolution that was percolating coast to coast, Motown was Switzerland in Barry Gordy's eyes. Black power was right there in all the green dollars he was raking in. Motown was a business, and rocking the boat was bad for business. Norman. Norman Whitfield disagreed. He thought that Motown could pivot to socially conscious music along with a more contemporary sound. He saw Motown's future not in genteel dinner theater music, but as a hybrid of rock and soul. More sly in the Family Stone than Johnny Mathis. The other major event that set Norman's plan in motion was the departure of Holland Dozier Holland, the juggernaut songwriting impression production trio that had defined Motown sound for years. They walked out over surprise money disputes with Berry Gordy. And left a whole lot of talent just standing in the shadows. This was Motown's greatest moment of crisis. If the label had continued operations as normal, as if the world wasn't changing around them, would it still be around today? Norman Whitfield looked into the future and had his answer. He also saw his work window of opportunity step up and step in. Just like David Ruffin had seen his window of opportunity when the Temptations had beef with Al Bryant. It was an opportunity that would change the course of musical history. But first, Norman Whitfield had to stop history from repeating itself. Because David Ruffin was quickly becoming Al Bryant 2.0. David didn't prove to be a solution to the Temptation's problems. Instead, David just brought his own problems. Just like Al Bryant had before him and his own baggage. As a child in Mississippi, David Ruffin was routinely abused by a father who wielded an 8 inch rawhide leather whip. According to one of David's girlfriends, he was also sexually abused when he was younger. A story that has been corroborated by at least one other friend. Rather, by all accounts, David Ruffin's life was extremely fucked up from the get go. As an adult, he regularly mistreated the people who were supposed to be the most important in his life. He needed his ego fed constantly. People told him he was the Temptation, so that's what he believed. And in turn, he treated the rest of the band like shit. He treated Tammy Terrell even worse. Tammy Terrell had an unforgettable voice that came from an unforgettable face. By the time she got to Motown, she'd already endured physical abuse from her previous boyfriend. The hardest working man in showbiz James Brown. And it only got worse with David Ruffin. David had been corrupted by fame at this point. Diamond studded glasses and white mink interior convertible and all that. He was also corrupted by cocaine cane. And now the Temptations weren't without their temptations. For David, it was coke. For Paul Williams, it was two to three bottles of cavase each day. Money changes everything, Otis Williams once said about the messy trajectory of the group. But for David Ruffin, it's not like the money changed him. Money just allowed him to continue to be an to everyone in his orbit, but to do it with a budget. He asked Tammy to marry him, but failed to divulge that not only was he already married with children, but he had another girlfriend with whom he also had a child. And when Tammy got real famous, that's when things got real bad. Tammy sang on a series of instantly iconic duets with label mate Marvin Gaye, and pretty soon she was a household name. David Ruffin, by contrast, was just a temptation. It bugged the shit out of him that a woman, his woman, would dare to be more famous than him. So David took it out on her. Tammy showed up at the Hitsville USA building with bruises and black eyes barely concealed. Earl Van Dyke, keyboardist with Motown's in house band known as the Funk Brothers, witnessed David physically attack Tammy in the studio. Tammy even confided in Otis Williams that David had once hit her on the head with a lamp. A fucking lamp. She showed Otis the lump. David and Tammy's relationship was so toxic and so volatile that even the craziest rumors seemed like they could be true. And most of those rumors involved David hitting Tammy on the head with something. A lamp, his motorcycle helmet. The worst rumor of all, however, was that he had hit her on the head with a hammer. Some said the rumor was true. Some said it was on brand behavior for a guy with a violent past and a bruised ego and thus must be true. And some even went so far to say that when Tammy died tragically just a few years later at the age of 24, it was more than obvious who was to blame. We'll be right back after this.
- [27:04]
Unknown Speaker 3
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- [27:07]
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- [27:37]
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- [28:07]
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- [28:41]
Jake Brennan
Eddie Kendricks decided he'd had enough cocaine for one day. He pushed the old rolled up dollar bill, the one that smelled like oil and and sweat, back over to David Ruffin. David looked like his apartment was a mess. Eddie wondered if David's whole world had ended when he was kicked out of the Temptations. David filled Eddie's head with so much information that day, so much conflicting information, that Eddie didn't even know where to begin. Should Eddie push back on Barry Gordy? Would he be committing career suicide if he made a fuss? Should he just shut up and work himself to death? Did he want to end up like David Ruffin, his solo albums collecting dust on a shelf in Motown's office while his former band soldiered on without him? One question he didn't ask himself was whether or not David was playing with him, just like David played with everyone else in his life in order to insert himself back into the Temptations lineup. Not that the group was ready to take him back. The years since David had left have been some of the Temptations best, and that's not a slight on the David Ruffin years. But with tenor Dennis Edwards stepping into David's empty shoes and producer songwriter Norman Whitfield at the helm, the quintet made some of the most unique and impactful music of their career. The stretch from late 1968 when David left in 1973 would come to be known known as the Temptations psychedelic Soul period, lifting heavily from non Motown groups like Sly and the Family Stone and Funkadelic, the Temptations created an acid soul hybrid that was both funky and far out. It was new territory for Motown in so many ways. First was the aggressive and trippy musical style. Not to mention the way in which many songs had multiple lead singers instead of just one. The lyrical content of tracks like Runaway Child, Running Wild, Smiling Faces, Sometimes Ball of Confusion, that's what the World Is Today, and Papa Was a Rolling Stone reflected a country in constant upheaval, wracked with paranoia, confrontation and betrayal. And with Dennis Edwards gruff and intense voice, the tone of the Temptation's material became more urgent than ever. Less urgent were the song's need to end quickly, again. Breaking with Motown tradition. Many album tracks pushed well into the 6, 7, even 13 minute mark. Norman Whitfield had successfully seized his opportunity to refine Motown records when it was at its most vulnerable. And while the temps were blazing these LSD trails, David's solo act bordered on quaint nostalgia. Sure, he was. He looks dynamite in the Summer of Soul documentary. And his performance is classic. But to be singing my girl in 1969 was to be singing a song of innocence that was five years old an eternity ago in the fast paced cultural revolution of the 1960s. By comparison, the Temptations music wasn't just successful creatively. The group continued to score high on the R and B and pop charts during this era, including number one on both charts in the summer of 1969 for the Killer track I Can't Get Next to youo. In that same year, Norman Whitfield and the Temptation scored Motown its first Grammy Award with the song Cloud 9. It was an accomplishment that they'd never achieved, either with David Ruffin or Al Bryant. And therein lay Eddie Kendricks problem. The Temptations were more popular and more successful than they'd ever been before. And Berry Gordy was still screwing them over. Eddie appealed to Otis Williams and the other guys in the group. They needed to stage a strike. No singing, no touring. They wouldn't put a goddamn vocal on a goddamn track until Barry made things right. Eddie was overruled. The Temptations were successful, sure, but they didn't have the clout of a Diana or a Stevie or a Marvin. It was best to just keep working hard, day in and day out, making what money they could. And hoped that things would continue to work out in their favor down the road. Bullshit. Eddie wasn't satisfied with the position his group was taking. Frankly, he was pretty fucking unsatisfied. Eddie Kendricks marched down to the donovan Building at 2457 Woodward Avenue, the site of Motown's business offices. He hadn't calmed down. His head was full of the coked up conspiracies of David Ruffin. Eddie could be next. Any of them could be next, and they were being cheated. The time was right. Fuck dancing in the streets. It was time to get paid. Money, that's what I want. Eddie marched right through the front door, practically snapped the thing off its hinges. The other Temptations followed closely behind him. Come on, Eddie, chill out, they said. Let's all chill out and take a minute and figure this out. You're gonna blow your stack in there. You're gonna regret this, brother. Eddie didn't listen. He was done listening. Barry Gordy was going to listen now. That was where it was at. Eddie blew past the secretaries who asked if they could help. Blew right into Barry's office, and Barry looked at Eddie with a grin. Smiling faces sometimes, man, Eddie exploded. This is ripping us off. He yelled and pointed his finger at Barry Gordy. Do you know how many shows we've played and not gotten paid? We sold out Shea Stadium. Didn't see a dime. I'm sick of this. Eddie Kendricks looked like he was about to jump on top of Barry Gordy's desk. Like a replay of when Abdullah jumped on A R man, Ralph Seltzer's desk. Barry Gordy didn't tremble, didn't back down. The calmer he stayed, the more Eddie raged and the more Eddie raged, the more things remained the same between Motown and the Temptations. Eddie was fighting a losing battle. As far as the rest of the group was concerned, there was no battle. But it drained Eddie Kendrickson pretty soon. Still, bullshit. He quit the Temptations. So did Paul Williams, the group's baritone, who had taken a beer bottle to the face back in 1963. But Paul didn't quit in solidarity with Eddie's money drama. Paul had his own damn problems. His voice had been destroyed by alcohol, so at his liver he suffered from sickle cell anemia and had to use an oxygen tank. He had to take off the oxygen mask every time he lit up a smoke, which was often. He owed the federal government back taxes to the tune of 80 grand and he was currently shacking up with a girlfriend, seeing his wife had recently kicked him out of the house. All these facts led the police to believe it was suicide. When a stranger stumbled upon Paul's body in the early hours of August 17, 1973, he was on the pavement directly beneath the open driver's side door of his Ford Maverick, the kind of car that David Ruffin wouldn't be caught dead in. The pavement was bloody beneath Paul's head. Cops found a smashed bottle of booze nearby and a gun and two bullets missing from the chamber. Single gunshot wound to the left temple. Close range killed him instantly. Self inflicted, open and shot. Otis Williams was devastated when he heard the news, but he wasn't shocked. Paul had been in a bad way for a long time. And not everyone was so sure that Paul Williams had taken his own life. Paul was right handed. And the investigation determined that Paul did in fact fire the gun with his right hand. But he had been shot in his left temple. How could he have done that? But why didn't he just shoot himself in the right temple instead of twisting his arm around to the other side of his body? And what about the broken bottle on the ground? There was also the fact that the gun had two bullets missing, despite the other fact that Paul had been shot only once. Had someone else been there? Had there been a struggle? Was Paul Williams murdered? To Paul's family, these questions were valid and required answers. And the answers were never good enough. Speaking about the tragedies of people like Paul Williams and the Supremes, Florence Ballard, Marvin Gaye said those people were victims. The business turned them inside out. They couldn't cope. Back at his apartment, David Ruffin did another line. His paranoia reached a fever pitch as the powder hit his bloodstream. He worried that he had said too much to Eddie Kendricks. According to the pretzel logic going on inside his head, he had offered counsel to Eddie. Counsel that ultimately meant Eddie's ejection from the band and thus gave David the upper hand to rejoin. And that plan had backfired and it had somehow gotten Paul killed. David knew it. Was it just his imagination, you know, running away with him? In David's paranoid mind, the fantastical truth was staring them all in the face. Motown had murdered Paul Williams to serve as an example to guys like David and Eddie. Or so went David's fucked up thinking. What becomes of the brokenhearted if the brokenhearted tried to fight back against Motown to get off? That's what becomes becomes of them. Whether or not that was actually true, there was one thing in David's mind that was indisputable. And it was something he had said to Eddie. Any of them could be next. Tammy Terrell took Marvin Gaye's hand in hers as they reached the climax of Ain't no Mountain High Enough. And the spotlight was as locked on them as their eyes were locked on each other. They weren't lovers in life. They were lovers in song. Not the audience in Hampden Sydney College could hear it in their voices and see it in their faces. But then Tammy's face changed. Tammy felt dizzy. She looked at the microphone in her hand, and it suddenly looked like a fuzzy square. The room spun. The sound of the band playing behind them became cavernous. The music echoed in her head. She looked over at Marvin, who was doing his best to to soldier on despite the obvious fact that his duet partner was panicking. And then Tammy fell. The mic dropped to the floor. Marvin was there on the double. Just as fast as he could, he caught her in his arms. The white stretched limo came to a stop, and David Ruffin, sitting in the back seat, came out of a daze. He'd been thinking about Tammy again. It was 1991, more than two decades since her death, and David was still thinking about her. He hadn't been there on that night back in 1967 when she collapsed, but he heard the story of what happened. Moments like these. Riding in the back of a borrowed limo, half stoned out of his mind and on the prowl for the next fix to get him stoned the other half of the way, he replayed the story in his head. He thought about going to see Tammy at the hospital right after it happened, and the doctors said it was a brain tumor. Tammy didn't tell the doctors about all the times David had hit her in the head, but David heard the rumors around Motown that Tammy was in a bad way, all because of him. And no one dared confront David about the rumors. They didn't want to be next. As the surgeries piled on and then the chemo started and Tammy's hair fell out and she lost her eyesight and became partially paralyzed, David just stopped showing up. He'd moved on to the next woman well before Tammy passed on in March 1970. Now, on June 1, 1991, David Ruffin was 50 years old, but looked and felt at least 15 years older. He'd been addicted to cocaine for about as long as Tammy had been dead, probably even longer, if he was being honest. He used his coke pipe as a bonding mechanism with Eddie Kendricks and Dennis Edwards when in 1982, he and Eddie at long last rejoined the Temptations for a reunion tour. In an album, their routine of days gone past, gin and soda followed by cocaine, followed by pills, was now replaced with all hits from the pipe, all flight time. You can only imagine how quickly that reunion went off the rails. He and Eddie felt the warm glow of the spotlight one more time when they played support to hall and oates on their 1985 album Live at the Apollo, even taking the stage with the Blue Eyed Soul Brothers at Live Aid and cracking the top 20 with a medley of the way you do the things you do in my girl that same year. But that was a brief ray of sunshine in a long line of cloudy days for David Ruffin. After he did time in rehab in the late 80s, David still couldn't quit the coke. He was thrown in jail for possession, did a year on the inside, and now a former rehabber, former inmate and former temptation, David Ruffin wasn't holding. He needed to score. It was after midnight. He gazed out the window at a three story house at the corner of Viola and North 52nd, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was in Philly because that's where the plane had landed. He'd flown back from London after a quasi Temptations reunion tour he'd participated in with Eddie and Dennis. He carried a briefcase filled with money he made on tour. $40,000 in British travelers checks. Like most of David's money, he knew it wouldn't last him long. The three story house outside his window window was an oasis in an otherwise shady part of town for junky luminaries like him, a crack house to the stars. A crack house palace. The place didn't just have the best it had sofas and TVs and stereos so that you could make yourself at home while taking a trip to Cloud 9. According to the limo's driver, Donald Brown, he and David walked inside shortly after midnight and proceeded to smoke between five and 10 vials of crack. Three hours later, Donald Brown frantically pulled the white stretched limo up to the entrance of the University of Pennsylvania Hospital and laid on his horn. David Ruffin was slumped in the back seat, unconscious. Attendants from the hospital rushed outside and carried David into the er. Less than an hour later, he was pronounced dead. Some, like the surviving Temptations, were dismayed over another senseless tragedy that took another member of the Motown family away before his time. For others, like David's family, there were unanswered questions. Like where was the $40,000 in travelers checks that David was carrying? At the hospital he was found with a meager $53 in his pocket and the 4040 grand had up and vanished. Was David set up? Had he been fed more drugs than he could handle so that it would make him an easy target to rob? The questions drew parallels to the supposed suicide of Paul Williams two decades earlier, similar conspiracy theories began to bubble to the surface. How strong was the long arm of the Motown law? Was there a temptation's curse? Was hard to know. Many of those questions would go unanswered, maybe forever. But the death of David Ruffin, just like the deaths of Tammy Terrell, Florence Ballard, Paul Williams and Marvin Gaye before him, did make one thing clear. It's a dog eat dog world out there, and that ain't no lie. In fact, it's a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page@gracelandpod.com if you're listening, as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to Disgracelandpod.com Membership members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland ad free. Plus you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month, weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelandpod.com membership for details, rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook Disgracelandpod and on YouTube@YouTube.com Disgracelandpod Rocka Rolla He's a bad, bad man.