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"Papa Was a Rolling Stone" is a soul song, written by Motown songwriters Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong as an album track for Motown act The Undisputed Truth in 1971. A year later, Whitfield, who also produced the song, took "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" and remade it as a 14-minute record for The Temptations, which won three Grammy Awards in 1973.
Dennis Edwards, Melvin Franklin, Richard Street, Damon Harris, and Otis Williams each take turns delivering the somber tale of siblings who ask their mother to tell them about their now-deceased father, whom they have never seen, but have "heard nothing but bad things about him." Each of the song's three verses is seperated by extended musical passages, in which Whitfield brings various instrumental textures in and out of the mix, including a blues guitar, wah-wah guitar, Rhodes piano notes, handclaps, horns, and strings; all are tied together by an ever-present plucked bass guitar line and repeating hi-hat rhythm.
Friction arose during the recording of "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" for a number of reasons. The Temptations didn't like the fact that Whitfield's instrumentation had been getting more emphasis than their vocals on their songs at the time, and that they had to press Whitfield to get him to produce ballads for the group. In addition, Dennis Edwards was angered by the song's first verse: "It was the the 3rd of September/That day I'll always remember/'cause that was the day/that my daddy died". Edwards' real-life father had died on the same day as the fictional father in the song, and although the song wasn't orriginally written for the Tempts, Edwards was convinced that Whitfield assigning him the line was intentional. Although Whitfield denied the accusation, he used it to his advantage: he made Edwards record the disputed line over and over again until Whitfield finally got the angered, bitter grumble he desired out of the ususally fiery-toned Edwards.
The Temptatons' version of "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" set a precident for extra-legnth "cinematic soul" song mixes, and future songs like Donna Summer's 17-minute "Love to Love You Baby" and the instrumentals of MFSB expanded upon the concept in the mid-1970s.
A 7-minuted edited version of "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" was released as a single in September 1972; its b-side was Whitfield's instrumental without the Temptations' vocals. "Papa" rose to #1 on the US pop charts and #5 on the US R&B charts, becoming the Temptations' final pop #1 hit. The song, the anchor of the 1972 Temptations album All Directions, won three 1973 Grammies: its a-side won for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Group, and its b-side won for Best R&B Instrumental (awarded to Whitfield and arranger/conductor Paul Riser), and Whitfield and Barret Strong won for Best R&B Song as the song's composers.
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