Dennis Edwards, the lead singer of the Temptations, has died at the age of 74.

Edwards, who joined the band in 1968 and sang with them on and off until 1989, was the lead singer on hits including Papa Was a Rolling Stone, I Can’t Get Next to You and Cloud Nine.

Edwards’ family confirmed to CBS News that the singer, a native of Detroit, died on Friday in Chicago. A cause of death was not revealed. Edwards would have turned 75 on Saturday.



Born just outside Birmingham, Alabama, in 1943, Edwards was the son of a pastor, which led to a musical upbringing in the gospel choir at his father’s church. Edwards would eventually study at the Detroit Conservatory of Music and start a jazz group, Dennis Edwards and the Fireballs, in 1961. After a stint in the military, Edwards auditioned for Motown Records and became the lead singer for the Contours, who frequently opened for the Temptations. The gig led him to David Ruffin, whom he replaced as the group’s lead vocalist in 1968.

Edwards, far right, performs in 1968. Photograph: GAB Archive/Redferns

Edwards left the group to a pursue a solo career in 1984, which spawned the hit single Don’t Look Any Further, a duet with Siedah Garrett. He’d return to the Temptations in 1987 but left again two years later. In the 1990s, he began touring under the name the Temptations Review featuring Dennis Edwards, joined in the group by Paul Williams Jr, Chris Arnold, David Sea and Mike Patillo.

In 1977, Edwards was briefly married to Ruth Pointer, the eldest member of the Pointer Sisters. The two have a daughter, Issa Pointer, born in 1978.

Known for imbuing the Tempations music with influences like funk and psychedelic rock, Edwards presided over a departure from Ruffin’s more ballad-centric style and ushered in a sound redolent of the funk band Sly & the Family Stone. Edwards was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with the Temptations in 1989 by Daryl Hall and John Oates, with whom they sang at the ceremony at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.