The Temptations: The Band That Took Motown Higher

FORTY YEARS ago this month, the Temptations released a single that would change the face of Motown. Martin Luther King Jr had been gunned down in Memphis, the Vietnam war was at its height, the Black Panthers were on the rise, and now here were the clean-cut quintet famed for their tender ballads, declaring: "The childhood part of my life wasn't very pretty/I was born and raised in the slums of the city," over tumultuous, wah-wahing funk. Soul had found a new destination: 'Cloud Nine'.