Soul David Ruffin Article 5/19/69 David Ruffin,Can he Stand Alone? By Judy Spiegelman There comes a time in every mans life when he has to face the challenge of reality,and this is a reality. So speaks David Ruffin,ex-Temptation who eight months ago split from the group he had helped rocket to stardom in perhaps the fastest flight ever to the pinnacle of entertaining success. Now almost one year after SOUL received a phone call from the dejected young man who reported that he had been fired from that group. David Ruffin is a monster star in his own right. Girls and boys,young and old alike ,flock to his concert appearences,mobbing the stage and the aisles trying to touch him as his music touches them. What does a young man who was once an integral part of the most popular male vocal group in all the country,feel when he is given his wings and allowed to fly on his own? Im gliding very nicely now David told SOUL,It was hard at first. There is a difference to adjusting to being a single act but not that much of a difference. If we did a fifty-five minute show as a group,I did forty to forty-five minutes as lead. That makes me over by myself for that whole time. But regardless of who it is, when youve been with somebody that long,singing,youre gonna miss them. I do miss the Tempts...Its like life. If you have something with you for four years and six months when your not around it youre definitely going to miss it. But if you put on a new shoe and you wear it as long as the old shoe you took off,I think you become confortable. Ive enjoyed doing many things with them,but right now Im enjoying doing something I think I have to do. That is to sing. Since I am alone I have that to do. The Ministers Son David Ruffin did a lot on his own before joining the Tempts as well. Born on the cusp of Capricorn-Aquarius (January 18,1941) in Meridian ,Mississippi,David is the son of a minister and a schoolteacher. One of four children,three boys and a girl,David grew up singing spirituals with his father, occasionally preaching a sermon,at the tender age of twelve. By the time he was fourteen,David had joined with a traveling minister,singing and driving for him. In Memphis I joined a religious group called the Dixie Nightingales and we traveled doing shows with Pop Staples and all of the groups on that circuit. THen Sam Cooke came out and I started running after him. He came out with You Send Me and I stopped singing spirituals and started singing pop. I went to Arkansas and was singing in small clubs. There used to be talent shows,and Elvis Presley used to be in them.The same shows. Elvis impressed me,he was just starting then,and he was a heck of a star. I was doing a local show in Ann Arbor,Michigan,and there was a local band I played drums with. I also sang on the show,switching off with the other drummer. The Tempts came on the show and played with us for about a month and thats how we met. After the month I joined them. I thought as much of them then as I do now. I thought that they were a great group,and they still are. Something in the Stars About the causes for his break with the group David says Maybe it was just in the stars. Things happen for the best or for the worst,but this way its worked both ways,because they are doing very well and things are looking better for me. I think it was something that was meant to happen. A lot of fans feel that theyve missed something,but they havent missed anything. They bought my voice along with theirs for four years and some,and now its not there. But they have a new sound,and that means that theyve got THAT soundand Ive got MY sound. Its still going-its just like two people had a business going and they split up. In music that special sound is YOUR business,and they have theirs and I have mine and its great. I see the Temptations everytime I get home.Im close with all of them. One of the things that has happened lately,is that all of the Motown acts,but particularly the tempts and the Four Tops want to have david appear on the same show with them. Motown says that the possibility does loom in the future. David would like to do something like that. I think it would be great,especially with the Tempts. I think it would be a heck of a show. With them doing some of my songs and me doing some of the things they have done since I left;and doing some of the things we used to do together. What has David been doing in the eight months since he left the group? The same thing anyone launching a new career would do. Studying the trade. Going from a group entertainer to a single means learning a whole new way of singing; a whole new repertorie and a whole new stage presentation. In addition he has recorded a single which has been a great hit and is working on an album soon to be released,called Doin His Thing. Realistic Tunes In making the single on his own,David felt the song. I dont believe in singing a song I dont feel. Most of the tunes that Ive done since Ive been on my own,have been good lyrically and the producers and arrangers worked very hard on them. I thought this was a tune that would go. I think it was the biggest thing in my career,and Im enjoying it. The song was written for me two months before I got out . It was written for me to do with the group,but somehow it never got recorded. The song was written eleven months before he recorded it. I have a lot of realistic tunes on the album. Theres one tune called Bang,Bang,Crime In The Streets. And theres a funny story that goes with it. The session ,the day I cut the tune was called for eight oclock at night,and about five oclock that evening I saw a fellow running through an alley with the police shooting at him. Then I walked into the recording studio and Johnny Driscoll says,Heres the tune Ive been telling you about,Bang ,Bang,Crime in the Streets. I said,Oh,my God ! I believe in messages in every tune I do.My Girl had a message,it was no dancing tune.So did I Wish It Would Rain, it was a tune you had to listen to.Bang ,Bang is just that kind of song. Its a listening tune. Its what is happening today. The story tells of a man who was innocent getting shot. The guy who was guilty got away. Another song concerns a guy who never had anyone to stand by him,its called Pieces of a Man. I think these message songs should wake up a lot of people. The writers of these tunes are the ones who have the message,Im just delivering. When I walk into the session,I havent seen them. I look them over and give the music my feeling about the subject,but I just deliver the message they write,from whatever I feel about the story after reading it at the session. Its their words,but my feeling. A Unique Relationship There is a very unique relationship between writers and singers andproducers.There has to be very strong communications between these three.We always try to do a song. You can sing every song and try to deliver it,but a song can have changes made to fit a singer.I have the right to say no,but the producers know their singers well enough to pick the right songs. What are his plans for the future? I have seven songs I have written that Ive had about seven years. When I get back home were going to try to do some things with them. Theres one that I even wrote on stage called Feeling Good. I also want to go into movies,I want to be an actor. Id like to be in westerns or something relating to a fact of today, maybe ghetto life. Or a minister,which I could easily play. My family always thought I was going to be a minister,but I fooled them. But,you always go back to where you came from and I was within the church before I started singing pop. Thats where I developed most of my techniques. The Heir Apparent Motown management feels that as there is an heir apparent for every act,David has engendered the kind of emotional reaction in his audience that may make him take over the spot of Number One Soul Brother one day. Asked about this great charisma he has which causes people to want to leave their seats and run up to the stage just to touch him,David replied: Its a beautiful feeling to look down at this. People are very funny,they have different ways of showing the way they feel about you. They want to touch me,and I want to touch them...but everybody wants to touch me at the same time ... Its a wonderful feeling. At some engagements you can see five or six people brought there in hospital beds. Maybe somebody has just lost somebody dear or just gotten badly hurt,and they can come and hear me sing and get a rejoicing feeling out of this,for that hour or forty-five minutes. Thats what I see when I try to touch them,because it really might happen for them the way they make it happen for me. Davids Woman David is a very sensitive young man. He has been through many years of hard work and has taken a great gamble on losing all what he has earned. Through all of this he has stood alone,with no woman beside him to give him advise or comfort. What kind of woman would it take to be the wife of such a strong and fearless man? Shed have to be a woman,a very understanding woman. Shed have to understand me,but most of all shed have to understand what I am doing. She would have to be a mother and let me be a father,to understand me and make me have a better life. And to be happy. To live with David Ruffin a woman would also have to give him time to do the things he enjoys. I have four quaterhorses. I race them sometimes. We have one stallion called Black Horse. We cant even name him,cause we cant let nobody ride him but we have a lot of fun with him. I ride motorcycles and collect records. I listen to a lot of records. I also read the Bible a lot. I like to tape sessions when I jam with a gituar and drum,and sometimes we write that way. I read Dr. King and boigraphies like Sammy Davis and Pigmeat Marhams new book.And I like to go to plays. David has very strong political beliefs. A singer should comment on whatever he feels is right,he says. David carries all kinds of political material and philosophies. He relates very strongly to blackness and tries to expose himself to every philosphy. We have different techniques today but they are all for the same cause. Stokely Charmichael marched with Dr. King,and then he pulled away from non-violence,but all for the same ultimate purpose. At one time it seemes that one was pulling against the other one,but it all came back to the same thing. You cant have more than one star,you have to have a star and then a co-star and everything is built around that. The Dr. King way will get us the farthest,but everybody helps.Everybodys working toward the same end,but Dr. King has more believers. David Ruffin today is his own man. He sings his own songs,designs his own clothes,chooses his own stagings and carries himself in every way like the independent Aquarius that is a part of his birthsign. But with a heavy burden the transition must have been. In a casual remark during the course of a lengthy interview David passed perhaps the most revealing commentary on the entire ordeal. At the beginning of the first couple of shows by myself,Id be singing and then make a move as if to go into the background,but there wasnt any background. In the first couple of shows,that was missed. Now when I walk on . . . I have more room to walk.
Posted on: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 01:28:11 +0000