♪ ♪ ♪ >> I'm here at the historic Imperial Theatre for the award-winning, record-breaking musical smash hit "Ain't Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations."

We'll be joined by Otis Williams of the Temptations and their manager, Shelly Berger, next on "The Chavis Chronicles."

>> Major funding for "The Chavis Chronicles" is provided by... Reynolds American, dedicated to building a better tomorrow for our employees and communities.

Reynolds stands against racism and discrimination in all forms and is committed to building a more diverse and inclusive workplace.

American Petroleum Institute -- through the core elements of API's Energy Excellence Program, our members are committed to accelerating safety, environmental and sustainability progress throughout the natural-gas and oil industry in the U.S. and around the world.

You can learn more at api.org/apiEnergyExcellence.

Over the next 10 years, Comcast is committing $1 billion to reach 50 million low-income Americans with the tools and resources they need to be ready for anything.

♪ ♪ >> ♪ I know you wanna leave me ♪ ♪ But I refuse to let you go ♪ ♪ If I have to beg, plead, for your sympathy ♪ ♪ I don't mind 'cause you mean that much to me ♪ ♪ Ain't too proud to beg ♪ ♪ And you know it ♪ ♪ Please don't leave me, girl ♪ ♪ Don't you go ♪ ♪ Ain't too proud to plead, baby, baby ♪ ♪ Please don't leave me, girl ♪ ♪ Don't you go ♪ >> We're on the stage of the Imperial Theatre in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, the phenomenal, the transformative Otis Williams, founder and leader of the Temptations, and Shelly Berger, longtime manager of The Temptations.

Welcome to "The Chavis Chronicles."

>> Thank you.

>> Thank you, Dr. Chavis.

>> Thank you, Dr. Chavis.

>> Man, we have so much to discuss.

>> Let's do it.

>> I'm going get to the beginning.

>> Okay.

>> You were born in Texarkana, Texas, Otis?

>> That's right.

>> And, Shelly, you were born in Brooklyn, New York.

Otis, how did you get from Texarkana, Texas, to Detroit, Michigan?

>> Well, I stayed with my grandmother up until I was about eight or nine.

My mother had moved to Detroit because, trying to find work, you know, like most black people trying to do back then, move from the south to cities where they could get better employment.

And so I came to Detroit when I was about 11 or 12 years old.

And I would go back and forth to Texas and Detroit, but ultimately we ended up staying in Detroit.

And like I said, about 12 years old and at that time, that's when rock 'n roll was just beginning to start happening, you know, because I was raised up with two grandmothers.

"Boy, you're not going to be listening to that rock 'n roll stuff in my house," you know?

I had to listen to Mahalia Jackson, whom I love, Sam Cooke when he was with the Soul Stirrers, the Dixie Hummingbirds.

So I was raised up on that kind of music.

But when they brought me to Detroit and I started listening to other kind of music, I said, "Wow, I like this," you know?

And I started going to the Fox Theatre because they started bringing the big rock 'n roll shows to the Fox Theatre.

Now, the Fox Theatre is the second largest indoor theater in America.

Radio City is the first.

>> Fox Theatre in Detroit?

>> Yeah.

>> So when did you start singing?

>> I started singing when I was about 14 years old, you know, when I went to see the rock 'n roll show and I saw the Cadillacs and I saw Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers.

Saw a lot of wonderful acts.

But when you look around and see the -- The Fox holds 5,000-plus people.

Now, being 14 years old -- and the Fox Theatre is cavernous.

To see what five guys was doing on the stage and all those people going crazy.

Seven years later, the Temptations were right there and the same thing.

>> On that same stage?

>> Same stage.

>> And, Shelly, how does a guy like you from Brooklyn, New York, wind up managing one of the world's greatest performing artists group, The Temptations?

>> It was a circuitous route, to say the least.

It is funny.

I used to -- There's a street in Brooklyn called Eastern Parkway.

>> Yes.

>> And I used to listen to a portable radio and loved R&B music.

And there was a tune called "Lonely Teardrops."

And Jackie Wilson was probably my favorite performer.

And then one day in 1965, I was now living in Los Angeles and I was walking through a door to a meeting.

And the man on the phone said, "I would not be interested, but you know who would be really good?

Shelly Berger."

And he hung up and I said, "Who were you talking to?"

He said, "Oh, I was talking to the P.R.

person for -- Did you ever hear of Motown?"

I said, "Did I ever hear of Motown?

Are you kidding?"

He says, "Well, they're looking for someone to open their California office.

And, you know, I don't know, would you be interested?"

I said, "Are you kidding?"

So about 11 months later, going back and forth, I was hired by Motown.

>> So you were at the right place at the right time?

>> Absolutely.

>> But I know you're being very modest, Shelly.

You also had the right gifts of management.

Motown, at that time, was looking for someone to manage several of its acts.

>> Well, yes, at one point -- at one point in time -- You see, I knew -- [ Clears throat ] I knew what was going to happen to the Temptations before anybody else knew what was going to happen to the Temptations because I saw them and I said, "These people are beyond words.

They have got to be the biggest stars in the business."

>> Tell us something about how the group first gets started, and then I'm going to connect Shelly to being your early manager.

>> Well, the group first started out with Otis Williams and the Distants, and we used to be managed by a guy named Milton Jenkins.

But Milton was a player.

You know, he didn't have time for the Tempts -- well, the Distants, the Prime.

And the Supremes were there, and they called themselves the Primettes.

And at that time, we had a record out called "Come on," and it was Otis Williams and the Distants.

And Mr. Gordy -- we were doing record hops at the time, and Mr. Gordy came in.

>> Berry Gordy.

>> Yeah, Mr. Berry Gordy.

And he saw my group on stage, and on the record that we had was very big in Detroit.

They wouldn't let us off the stage.

They kept calling us back, kept calling us back.

So finally, we came off, and I'm standing there watching Smokey and the Miracles, and Mr. Gordy was standing next to me.

>> Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.

>> Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.

And so Mr. Gordy said, "I like that record you guys have out.

Why don't you come see me?"

Mr. Gordy gave me his card and I called, and he said, "Well, Otis, bring the guys over and meet Mickey Stevenson," who was in charge of A&R, and we performed for Mickey.

We did a song for him, and he was very impressed.

He said, "Mr. Gordy is going to love you guys because you got that harmony."

>> How did you come up with the name Temptations?

>> At the time, there was a young man named Bill Mitchell that worked at Motown.

So Paul, Eddie, Al, Melvin and myself, we were standing out there with Bill, and we were kicking around names and the name came up -- Temptations.

I said, "Oh, I like that."

And I asked the guys what did they think about it.

Paul said this.

He said, "Otis, a name is whatever it is.

We will make the name."

I said, "Good enough.

We're going to go with the Temptations."

So Bill hollered up to legal.

Legal was up on the second floor of a two-story family flat.

He said, "Put it on the contract -- The Temptations."

And that's how it evolved.

[ "My Girl" plays ] >> ♪ I've got sunshine ♪ ♪ On a cloudy day ♪ ♪ When it's cold outside ♪ ♪ I've got the month of May ♪ ♪ I guess you'd say ♪ ♪ What can make me feel this way?

♪ ♪ My girl ♪ >> ♪ My girl ♪ >> ♪ My girl ♪ >> ♪ Talking 'bout my girl ♪ >> ♪ My girl ♪ >> And so, Shelly, how did you now work directly for Otis Williams and the Temptations?

>> I had never met Berry Gordy before I signed with Motown, and the first time we met, he asks what my background was, and I said, "Well, you know, I've been in the management business for a number of years."

And he said, "Do you think you can get our artists on television?"

And I said, "Mr. Gordy, not only will we get our artists on television, but one day we will produce our own television specials.

And one day we're going to produce our own movies.

And one day they're going to do a documentary around Motown."

And that was July 6, 1966.

He immediately stopped the meeting, called the man who hired me and said, "Fire him."

And the man said, "Okay, I will.

But why is it that you want to fire him?"

He said, "Either he's on drugs or he's full of crap."

He said, "Okay, do you want me to fire him now?

Because he just set up this TV show for the only TV show that was ever done at the time with just Motown artists.

And B.G.

said, "Okay, well, don't fire him yet.

Let's wait until after the TV show."

So we did the TV show.

And then he called me up.

The Supremes were playing in Las Vegas.

And he called me up to his room, and he started talking to me about things.

And after we talked, he said, "Listen.

I manage the Supremes and my sister manages the Temptations.

Now you manage the Supremes and you manage Temptations."

>> Just like that?

>> Just like that.

>> You two guys are like soul brothers.

>> There's no question about it.

>> Talk to me about your personal relationship, Otis, with Shelly.

>> Well, I started looking at Shelly more than just a manager because I was going through some turmoil with the group, and, like, Shelly and Berry, they were always there for me.

You know, 'cause most managers, depending on who they are, they'd just be thinking about getting their percentage and to hell with anything else.

He took on a whole nother kind of form.

I could talk with Shelly about anything, and he would be there to give me guidance and strength whenever I felt kind of lonely or weak or whatever.

So it was that kind of bonding, and here it is, 56 years later.

>> 56 years later, y'all are still together.

>> Yes.

>> Let's fast-forward.

You're now on Broadway.

Tell us about the play and what is your hope that the Broadway show will produce in America, not just here in Times Square, but throughout the world?

>> We want it to be the same kind of soothing ointment that it can be.

Make people forget about, okay, we won't forget about pandemic, but we can live whereas we can still enjoy ourselves.

We want our music to have a special show, really, to have a special kind of meaning where it can touch the human spirit and we continue to live like we want to live even with all this, what's going on with this.

And when it first became real to me that they were getting ready to do the Tempts' life story, when they gave me the book and we were here when they were rehearsing, and I said to myself, "Oh, Otis, this is really getting ready to be real."

Like I said at the beginning, I never would imagine my life story going to Broadway.

Here they're giving me a folder about the script and who's doing what.

I'm still -- I'm starstruck.

I mean, I never would imagine, you know?

Like I said, I'm a little country boy, and all of this here happening, people crying, just seeing the play.

>> Well, they're tears of joy.

>> Yeah, oh, yeah, no question.

>> They're tears of hope.

I mean, even while this pandemic still goes on, I noticed everybody, noticed they had their mask, they're social distancing.

But at the end of the show, the whole theater stood.

So not only on Broadway, there's also a national tour.

>> Sure.

>> Starts in December.

>> It starts in December and will go throughout the country.

>> Yes.

>> How do you deal with fame?

How do you deal with all of the -- having millions of people throughout the world and not only admire your records, not only admire your talent, but the Temptations as a group really personified that whole Motown sound.

>> Sure, sure.

Well, you know, I must say it's a learning experience because there have been times when I would have to get after myself and pinch myself because the adulation was so strong, so powerful.

I mean, the love of the public, the way they would look at this group and we instill hope in them and all kind of different inspiration.

You know, I have to just keep myself in check and, like I said, keep the group together.

But it's just something that you learn as you go.

And I thought the strength in me when I was about -- I said, "Otis, this is what you must do," because like I said, I've been surrounded by some singing brothers, but here I am, still together today, carrying the Temptations, you know, into the 21st century.

I never would imagine that.

So it was just something that I just stayed single-minded.

And through all the changes that I've gone through, I just stayed normal.

When I come off the stage, it'll be because I'm ready to go.

Right now, I'm not ready to go.

So I love the guys that I have, and I wish the classic Tempts could've stayed together.

But see, like I've always said, success can be a strong, strange aphrodisiac.

>> How does the Motown sound contribute to the social consciousness of not just then but even today?

>> You know, well, Dr. King -- We were in Baltimore, Maryland, when we got word of him being, you know, shot, kill.

Big auditorium.

Now, we were headlining.

So the guy came over the P.A.

system and he made an announcement before we came on.

And when he announced that Dr. King had been assassinated, the whole theater, big place, hushed.

So we're saying, "How in the heck are we going to do this now with what just happened?"

But music and performance can be a very strong, powerful kind of situation because we have to go on with the show anyway, so when we went on, all those people just uplifted because we were out there doing our thing.

And we were crying with tears in our eyes behind what we had just heard about Dr. King, you know, but we were still received so well by hearing this, it just left one of those kind of marks in my mind that I will never forget it because like I told you earlier, the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee, that's where we used to stay.

>> Keep in mind, the Lorraine Motel was one of the few hotels or motels in the South where black people could stay.

>> That's right.

>> This is in Memphis, Tennessee.

>> Memphis, Tennessee.

>> And you used to stay at that motel before Dr. King's assassination?

>> Yes, we did.

Whenever we played Memphis, we would stay there because we couldn't stay in the other hotels.

They wouldn't like blacks then.

That was the only hotel that blacks could stay in Memphis, and that used to be my room that Dr. King had.

So when I saw it on the -- >> The same room that Dr. King was registered in when he went out on the balcony and was assassinated, you used to stay in that same room?

>> That was my room.

>> Wow.

>> And when I saw that on the TV, I said, "Oh, my God.

That is the room that I used to stay in."

And we came back into Memphis.

Can't stay there now because it's boarded up, no longer.

And I drove by.

Rather, we rode by and I thought.

I said, "Wow, the history that that place have."

But Dr. King, that was the room that I had whenever, and we stayed there three or four times.

They would always put me in that room, yeah.

>> Shelly, I'm going to go back to you.

The social consciousness of Motown music.

You've been with this group for a long time now, decades.

What have you seen, not just as the manager, but as part of the group?

I mean, in terms of the consciousness raising that the music produces?

>> Well, you see, you've been talking about the hit records that the Temptations had.

You have to understand that a lot of artists have hit records and after their last hit record, they're gone.

The Temptations had so much more than hit records.

>> Yes.

>> You see in 1968, the Temptations and the Supremes did a national television special.

Number-one-rated, Emmy Award-winning television special of two black contemporary artists doing one hour of not singing hits -- doing comedy, doing sketches.

>> It was unprecedented on television.

Nothing like that had ever happened.

>> It had never happened before because you have to understand at that moment in time, television was not an entertainment industry.

It was an advertising industry and it was run by advertising companies, and everybody was afraid, "Well, we can't do this because the South will not like it.

They will not play it."

Because we were so powerful, because the Temptations were so great, because the Supremes were so great, they had to buy it.

They bought it and it was a smash.

And of course, once it was a smash, we then, a year later... >> Everybody got on board.

>> ...did another.

>> Right.

>> Did number-one, Emmy Award-winning special, "G.I.T.

on Broadway."

And by that time, everybody said, "Oh, wait a minute.

If these, then we can do this," and the South didn't have any problems.

>> Well, it's interesting because you created and initiated a transformation of the entertainment industry, of the recording industry, of the television industry, of the radio industry.

It's just not about to hit songs.

It is what happened between these hit songs and how these hit songs produce a different narrative that was profitable, that was transformative at a time the country was racially divided.

The sound of Motown helped lift people's spirits.

>> Yes.

>> Well, you see, I'm speaking subjectively as I can only speak, but I never believed that Motown, that Berry Gordy, that the Temptations, that the Supremes got the full honors that they deserved... >> At that time.

>> ...for what they did.

And there are a lot of people standing on this man's shoulders.

>> Yes.

>> Okay?

They got to be real broad because a whole lot of people are standing on his shoulders.

>> So, Otis, in the Broadway play, I notice, which I thought was excellent production, that you see scenes not only of your performances here in the United States, but in Europe and other parts of the world.

Tell us about the global impact of the Temptations.

>> 1975, we were on a world tour.

We flew from Manila into Hong Kong.

And I'm walking around Hong Kong, looking, okay, land of Bruce Lee, this and that.

Ran into three soldiers who just got out of the -- we had just got out of the Vietnam War.

>> The Vietnam War?

>> Mm-hmm.

So, they said, "Mr. Williams, can we talk with you?"

So naturally, I'm not going to turn them down 'cause for what they've been through, who am I to turn guys who put their lives on the line for us?

I said, "Sure."

When they started running down, see, the power of music can do some things that politicians can't do.

As they were running down the importance of what our music meant to them, they said they would be in the jungle fighting, not knowing if they would come back to the camp, when they would come in, they said the first thing they would want to hear -- "Put on the Temptations.

Put on Motown."

I said, "Really?"

And as they were telling me all these stories, they were crying because the Vietnam War had just finished in '74.

I think -- Yeah, '74, '72, somewhere around in there.

And we were on that world tour in '75.

But when they stopped me and started running that down, I mean, grown, big, buff guys crying, and they had me crying too, because the way they was running it down, I mean, I'm trying to man up, but I just let it go right along with them, you know, because it just shows you how powerful music can be.

We were in South Carolina.

When we first got to this auditorium, there was a rope right down the center of the aisle.

Blacks on one side, whites on the other.

>> In South Carolina?

>> Yes, sir.

>> What year was this, Otis?

>> This was 1965, '66.

>> Okay.

>> We looked at each other.

We went out, did our show, me and -- that was the classic Tempts.

And we did what we did, as far as performing.

Came back that same year, that next year.

No rope.

Blacks and whites sitting side by side, booty-bangin', high-fiving and enjoying themselves.

If it wasn't for the sweat that we were sweating, they would've seen five guys on stage crying -- the power of music.

>> Yes.

>> Again, the power of the Temptations allowed us to demand in every contract -- "The Temptations will not play before a segregated audience.

If we see that the audience is segregated, the Temptations will not appear, and you must pay them."

>> Thank you, Otis Williams.

Thank you, Shelly Berger, for joining "The Chavis Chronicles."

>> Thank you, Dr. Chavis.

>> Thank you, Doctor.

>> God bless you.

>> Back at ya.

>> Major funding for "The Chavis Chronicles" is provided by... Reynolds American, dedicated to building a better tomorrow for our employees and communities.

Reynolds stands against racism and discrimination in all forms and is committed to building a more diverse and inclusive workplace.

American Petroleum Institute -- through the core elements of API's Energy Excellence Program, our members are committed to accelerating safety, environmental and sustainability progress throughout the natural-gas and oil industry in the U.S. and around the world.

You can learn more at api.org/apiEnergyExcellence.

Over the next 10 years, Comcast is committing $1 billion to reach 50 million low-income Americans with the tools and resources they need to be ready for anything.

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