1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 259. The Temptations – All Directions (1972)

 

The star of this album is the epic Papa Was A Rolling Stone, a track where the intro is longer than many songs in their entirety. It leans heavily into the current style of funky tracks with orchestral backing, taking a leaf from Isaac Hayes. Apparently Dennis Edwards wasn’t too keen on the lyrics, in part because his own father was a minister and upstanding member of society, and not an absentee wastrel like the character in the song.  

This plays into the blaxploitation image of the African-American male, sexually incontinent, aloof, perhaps violent, a pusher or a pimp. Looking back historically, it’s a vicious cycle, where social deprivation (heightened by a conservative government seems to be willfully neglecting predominantly Black neighbourhoods in revenge for the Civil Rights movement daring to exist) leads to higher crime, and the portrayal of the Young Black Male in media makes that image seem the norm, providing bad roles models. 

That was a rabbit hole from one song. Side One is a bit funkier, including a live track Funky Music Sho’ Nuff Turns Me On (far too short), and Run Charlie Run with lyrics you *really* couldn’t play on the radio these days (another concept that the Temptations didn’t want to sing). 

Side Two is more soul, and slower, and perhaps more the kind of thing that the group were comfortable with rather than affected African-American stereotyping. Hence a cover version of a song from an English folk singer, Ewan “Father of Kirsty” MacColl. Richard Street does a gorgeous version of The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face – since the more famous Roberta Flack version was also released in 1972 it’s not sure who got there first, both are the slower tempo compared to MacColl’s original – apparently he hated every cover of his song. 

Mother Nature is another gorgeous slow soul song, and the album closes with a deeply sensual cover of an Isaac Hayes cover, Do Your Thing. 

I quite often don’t have much to say with soul/R&B albums, but this one is one of the best so far, a great mix of the funkier side with the slow soul side, a bit of orchestration but not too much. I wonder if part of this is the tension inherent between the material and the artists. I think the Tempations would rather be performing the more easy-going tracks like Al Green and Marvin Gaye, not the edgier stuff like Sly and the Family Stone, but in the process they end up with something beautifully balanced between the two. 

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