In the 1960s and ’70s, Berry Gordy’s Motown Records defined the sound of an era of pop music, producing some of pop history’s greatest stars while breaking down longstanding racial barriers in the music industry. While Motown’s heyday may be long-passed, it’s alive, well and electrifying on Broadway right now, thanks to the new bio-musical Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations.
Onstage each night, Derrick Baskin (Otis Williams), Ephraim Sykes (David Ruffin), Jeremy Pope (Eddie Kendricks), James Harkness (Paul Williams) and Jawan M. Jackson (Melvin Franklin) bring to vivid life both the music (a seemingly endless parade of hits) and complex lives of the men in the trailblazing group, turning in some of the most memorable performances on Broadway right now — as the Tony Awards have recognized, with 12 nominations for the show and two acting nods for Sykes and Pope in the featured actor in a musical category. The talented quintet came to the Billboard on…
