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Paul Williams (July 2, 1939 - August 17, 1973) was an African-American baritone singer. He is noted for being one of the founding members of the popular Motown group The Temptations.
A native of Birmingham, Alabama, Williams and his lifelong best friend Eddie Kendricks moved to Detroit, Michigan as teenagers. There, they started a singing group known as The Primes in 1959, along with third member Kel Osbourne. Although the group never recorded, they were successful performers, and even launched a spin-off female group called The Primettes (who later became The Supremes.
In 1961, the Primes disbanded, and Williams and Kendricks joined Otis Williams, Melvin Franklin, and Eldridge Bryant--former members of rival singing group The Distants--to form The Elgins, who were signed to the local Motown label that same year, with the provision they change their name.
Now performing as The Temptations, Williams and his bandmates endured a long series of flops before finally hitting the Billboard Top 20 in 1964 with "The Way You Do the Things You Do." More hits quickly followed, including "My Girl," "Ain't Too Proud to Beg," and "Cloud Nine." Williams sang lead on a number of the group's songs, including "Just Another Lonely Night" and "Don't Look Back". One of his best-known lead performances is his live performance of "For Once In My Life," from the television special TCB, originally broadcast on December 9, 1968 on NBC.
Williams, a father of four, suffered from sickle-cell anemia, which would keep him in poor health at times. He began to drink heavily during the latter part of the 1960s, and would sometimes be unable to perform. He was replaced in late 1971 by Richard Street; his friend Eddie Kendricks had left the group earlier that year to become a solo artist.
On August 17, 1973, Paul Williams was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his car, which was parked in a deserted parking lot not far from Motown's Hitsville USA studio. As a member of the Temptations, he was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989 and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1999.
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