6
Kendricks was on a roll on Tamla.
1974 brought three more Top Ten
R&B entries with
Son Of Sagittarius,
Tell Her Love Has Felt The Need
, and
One Tear
, and Eddie climbed to the
peak of the R&B hit parade again the
next year with
Shoeshine Boy
, nailing
more Top Tenners with
Get The
Cream Off The Top
and
Happy
later
in the year and
He’s A Friend
in ‘76.
Kendricks moved over to Arista in
1978,
Ain’t No Smoke Without Fire
proving his biggest seller there that
year.
Eddie participated in the ’82
Temptations reunion and teamed
with former Tempts co-star David
Ruffin to score in 1987 with
I Couldn’t
Believe It
for RCA (Eddie had
dropped the ‘s’ off his last name by
then, reflecting his actual birth
name). Lung cancer permanently
stilled his gorgeous voice on October
5, 1992; by then Eddie was living in
Birmingham, Alabama, the city where
he began his musical odyssey along
with fellow future Temptation Paul
Williams.
