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For it’s final performance this inaugural season, the Arcadia Performing Arts Foundation will be presenting one of the most influential groups of the last hundred years that was born in Motown and grew to become the very basis for contemporary American pop, The Temptations, on Saturday, June 7 at 8 p.m.

Tickets are available online www.Arcadiapaf.org and range from $59.50 to $99.50. The theatre is located at 188 Campus Drive at North Santa Anita Avenue in Arcadia, Calif.

Veteran Otis Williams, Ron Tyson, Terry Weeks, Joe Herndon, and Bruce Williamson make up the current lineup of the group, one that has spanned forty years and seen the luster and spark of so many great members come and go.

Invented by Berry Gordy in Detroit during the tumultuous sixties, it was in 1964 that the Smokey Robinson written-and-produced “The Way You Do the Thing You Do” launched the Temps into the national limelight.

With a near endless vault of hits hidden in their back pocket, which included songs like “My Girl” and “Too Proud to Beg,” that have gained a certain immortality, the Temps, which originally consisted of Williams, Melvin Franklin, Paul Williams, Eddie Kendricks, and David Ruffin, iconized themselves with their signature walk.

By the late sixties and seventies, producer Norman Whitfield helped push the group into the future with Ruffin’s replacement, Dennis Edwards, and hits like “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” and “Psychedelic Shack.”

The Temps added the superb talents of Richard Street and Ali-Ollie Woodson to their arsenal, and by the eighties and nineties, were still growing strong witch smashes like “Treat Her Like a Lady.”

“The more we change,” says veteran Ron Tyson, “the more we stay true to ourselves. We’re about singing straight-up soul. It’s a style that will live on forever.”

But while the times have changed, the Temps loyalty to their roots has only grown more robust, and is only matched by the dedication and ingenuity that has kept them relevant even today.

“Our challenge,” says Williams, “is to live in the present while respecting the past. Our past is filled with riches only a fool would discard. At the same time, we thrive on competition. As a Motowner, I grew up in the most competitive musical atmosphere imaginable. But we also understand that for a group with history, no matter how glorious that history might be, reinvention is the name of the game.”

When it comes to reinvention, there are few places more suited to bear witness than the Arcadia Performing Arts Center, which has renovated its commitment to the very future of the arts, both in education and programming, in the community.

Its goal remains to create an endowment of $10 million that will allow $50,000 or more per year for the Performing Arts Center and the district arts programs.

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