Get Ready (The Temptations song)

• 1. Introduction

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  "Get Ready" is a Motown song written by Smokey Robinson that became the hinge point on which the Temptations' entire musical future turned. In 1966, it sounded like a straightforward dance floor invitation. Behind the scenes, it was a wager. Berry Gordy had made a deal with a young producer named Norman Whitfield: if "Get Ready" did not meet expectations, Whitfield's song "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" would get the next release slot. What followed from that deal would reshape who the Temptations were for the rest of the decade. And the song itself, passed from artist to artist, would eventually travel from Motown's soul heartland to the rock clubs of the Midwest, to hip hop parties in the Bronx, and to a television network's promotional campaign. How does a single song carry that much distance?

• 2. The Wager Behind the Song

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  Smokey Robinson produced "Get Ready" as an answer to a specific dance craze of the moment: a move called "The Duck." He built it as an up-tempo dance number, with Motown drummer Benny Benjamin driving a prominent rhythm underneath. The group's falsetto Eddie Kendricks sang lead, delivering the kind of performance that had carried the Temptations to the upper reaches of the pop charts on song after song since "My Girl."

  Every Temptations single since "My Girl" had landed in the U.S. pop charts Top 20. "Get Ready" reached No. 1 on the R&B singles chart, their first chart-topper since "My Girl," but it stalled at No. 29 on the pop charts, missing the Top 20 by nine positions. The B-side, a ballad called "Fading Away," also led by Kendricks and written by Robinson alongside Miracles members Pete Moore and Bobby Rogers, failed to chart at all.

  Gordy's deal with Whitfield was now triggered. The next single would carry Whitfield's song. When "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" climbed to No. 13 on the pop charts and reached No. 1 on the R&B chart, Gordy formally assigned Whitfield as the Temptations' new main producer. Robinson's run with the group was over.

• 3. Rare Earth Rewrites the Record

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  A rock band from Michigan called Rare Earth had been playing "Get Ready" live for years before they ever put it on tape. It was a staple of their concert sets, and audience response was strong enough that when Motown executive Barney Ales brought the band to the label's then-unnamed rock subsidiary, he asked them to re-record it as their debut release.

  The band recorded a version that was scrapped. Then they set up their own equipment and recorded a 21-minute take of the song. Audience applause was later dubbed in. For the single, that recording was edited down to 2:46. In the UK, it received a Tamla Motown release, the only Rare Earth record to appear on the Motown label itself rather than the subsidiary.

  The single peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1970, far outpacing the Temptations' original No. 29. The full-length version took on a life of its own in New York. Hip hop journalist Steven Hager wrote that Rare Earth's recording "was a favorite in the Bronx because it lasted over twenty-one minutes, which was long enough for the serious dancers to get into the beat. They loved to wait for the song's two-minute drum solo to show their most spectacular moves." DJ Kool Herc used that version regularly in his turntablism performances, threading a 1960s Motown song directly into the birth of hip hop.

• 4. Covers Across Decades

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  Ella Fitzgerald recorded "Get Ready" and it became her last U.S. chart record in 1969, reaching No. 126 on the Billboard Bubbling Under the Hot 100 and appearing on the Record World "Non-Rock Top 40." She performed it on The Carol Burnett Show in November 1969.

  Smokey Robinson himself recorded the song he had written for his 1979 album Where There's Smoke. His six-minute disco version was released as a single and reached No. 82 on the R&B charts.

  Australian singer Carol Hitchcock released a version produced by Stock, Aitken and Waterman in 1987. It peaked at No. 18 in Australia and No. 56 in the UK.

  The Temptations returned to the song twice. Their version reached No. 10 in the UK in 1969, the chart success the original release had not managed. In the 1990-91 television season, they re-recorded it for CBS promotional spots, with lyrics modified to incorporate the network's "Get Ready for CBS" tagline, a slogan CBS had been using since 1988. They recorded it again as a dance version for their 1991 album Milestone.

• 5. Kendricks and the Lead Vocal Legacy

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  Eddie Kendricks' falsetto defines the original recording, but "Get Ready" marks the end of something specific in the Temptations' catalog. Until the group recorded "Please Return Your Love to Me" in 1968, this was the last Temptations song to feature Kendricks as the sole lead vocalist. David Ruffin, who was already a member of the group during the "Get Ready" sessions, and later Dennis Edwards, would take on that primary role in the recordings that followed.

  The handoff from Robinson to Whitfield as producer was, in part, a handoff from Kendricks to Ruffin at the center of the group's sound. Whitfield placed Ruffin front and center, and the Temptations' grittier, more psychedelic direction in the late 1960s owed much to that shift. The "Fading Away" B-side, included on the 1966 album Gettin' Ready, stands as a document of the Kendricks-led era at its close.