'Running' (Temptations)

Truly For You - Album

In 1984 Al McKay, of Earth,Wind & Fire Fame got called to produce the Temptations upcoming album. Al McKay and I had met when he first did some guitar work on one of SWITCH'S albums. He was looking for some songs for this upcoming project and I submitted some songs to him. One of the songs I submitted was 'Just Call My Name', which ended up being the single for Allison Williams. I spoke about this song on the March 6, 2011 post on this BLOG.

Tony Haynes, Attala Zane Giles and myself  had written a song by the name of "Running", which I also submitted to Al McKay. This song ended up being the first song on the Temptations "Truly For You" project.

This album featured the debut of their new lead singer Ollie Woodson who replaced Dennis Edwards. Since I'm more known as a singer rarely do I get to play on sessions. Of course I did with SWITCH but I've also got to play on the songs that I've written and placed on someone's project. On the song "Running", I'm playing the keyboards and the synth bass and Zane Giles is playing the guitar. Even though the Temptations sing, on this particular song, Zane and I are doing all of the backgrounds with a nice 4-part harmony.

 By this time in the Temptations career they had mega-hits. Some of the groups personnel had changed from the originals but they were still a main-stay in the industry.

This particular album had a #2 hit with the song "Treat Her Like A Lady" and the album as a whole hit #55 on the pop charts. For us it was a privilege to have a song and perform with such a legendary group. I also got to sing backgrounds on a couple of other songs on this album in addition to "Running". 

When you listen to this song today you can definitely tell that it was the 80s. Give it a listen:

Again another project that I was able to add my talent to and I'm thankful,

Until next time - Phillip