In the hiatus between then and his last big hit, “Hold On to My Love,” released in 1980 and written and produced by Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees, Mr. Ruffin performed regularly in the United States and made several albums, including one with his brother, “I Am My Brother’s Keeper.” He moved to England, where he found an enduring audience for his work, in 1981 and settled there for many years.

Jimmy Lee Ruffin was born in Collinsville, Miss., on May 7, 1936. His father, Eli Ruffin, was a sharecropper, preacher and gospel singer. His mother, Ophelia, who bore several children before him and after him, died when Jimmy was about 5, soon after the birth of his brother Davis, who later adopted the name David.

The boys’ father enlisted them in a traveling family gospel group when they were children. By the time they were teenagers, Jimmy and David had begun performing in the South as a gospel duo, the Ruffin Brothers, according to “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg,” a 2010 history of the Temptations by Mark Ribowsky.

The two went their separate ways after several years but reunited in Detroit in 1959, when Jimmy arrived to seek his fame in the nascent recording industry emerging from the city’s rhythm-and-blues nightclub circuit. David, who was already part of the circle of talent recruited by Motown’s founder, Berry Gordy, helped Jimmy get a job as a backup singer there.

In various versions of the Temptations’ history, either Jimmy or David Ruffin was the founding members’ first choice to join them in 1963, when another of the founding members was being replaced. By most accounts, including Mr. Ribowsky’s, David was their choice — an account Jimmy Ruffin supported in several interviews, saying that he had always planned on being a solo performer.