Jimmy Ruffin...the little brother of David Ruffin of the Temptations recorded this song that was rejected by The Spinners and in the process gave MoTown one of it's most grand and eloquent moments. A piece of music that by any commercial gauge of what popular music was, would have been ignored and labeled as depressing. But instead, it became a classic that had a 10 year reign on the charts. The soundtrack of the tortured era it was born in. A song that seems as if it was written by Smokey Robinson after being locked in a basement and forced to read T.S. Eliot.
Of course it didn't hurt that MoTown had the benefit of The Detroit Symphony Orchestra's String Section as session musicians!
Jimmy Ruffin
May 7, 1939 / November 17, 2014
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