Eddie Kendricks
By All Music Guide
By All Music Guide
The Temptations enjoyed one mega-hit after another in the mid-to-late 1960s, and they were still tremendously popular when Kendricks left to pursue a solo a career in 1971 (the year he sang lead on their hit Just My Imagination). Many Temptations fans questioned the wisdom of Kendricks leaving such a successful group, but Kendricks proved to be quite viable as a solo act thanks to early 1970s singles like Keep On Truckin (a #1 R&B hit) and Boogie Down (which went to #2 on the soul charts). Other noteworthy solo hits followed, including Shoeshine Boy, Get The Cream Off The Top and Happy in 1975 and Hes A Friend in 1976. Most of his solo albums came out on Motown, although Kendricks recorded Something More for Arista in 1979 and Love Keys for Atlantic in 1981. By that time, Kendricks popularity had decreased considerably. The singer wasnt heard from that much in the 1980s, but he did participate in the Artists United Against Apartheids Sun City project in 1985 and recorded with another former Temptation, David Ruffin, as a duo for RCA in 1988.
Sadly, the 1990s would see the premature deaths of no less than three former members of the Temptations. First, Ruffin died of a cocaine overdose in 1991, followed by the deaths of Kendricks in 1992 and Melvin Franklin (from a brain seizure) in 1995. (Tragedy was nothing new to Temptations members, for Paul Williams had committed suicide back in 1973). Kendricks was only 51 when he died of lung cancer in his native Birmingham on October 5, 1992.
