Eddie Kendricks started the year with a brilliant recording entitled “Girl You Need a Change of Mind”, which was the highest charting single of Eddie Kendricks’ solo career to date. The track was taken from the 1972 studio album “People…Hold On”. The single was released on 9th January 1973 and peaked at number thirteen on the Billboard Soul and R&B Singles Chart, week-ending 24th March 1973, spending eight weeks on the chart. Sources in the music industry have regarded the single as a prototype for the disco genre. It has been sampled over the decades by later artists. The song is number ninety-two on Rolling Stone’s list of The 100 Greatest Motown Songs.
The follow-up single, “Darling Come Back Home”, was the first single to be taken from Kendricks’ third studio album, which was released later on 19th April 1973 by Tamla Records. Its B-side is “Loving You the Second Time Around”. Songwriters featured on the A-side were Frank Wilson, Kathy Wakefield, and King Errisson, while the B-Side was co-written by Frank Wilson, Leonard Caston Jr., and Pam Sawyer, with both tracks arranged by Jerry Long. “Darling Come Back Home” reached number twenty-six on the Billboard Soul and R&B Singles Chart, week-ending 14th July 1973, and also peaked at number sixty-seven on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart, week-ending 11th August 1973. Although it was not a major crossover hit, its appearance on both charts demonstrates that Kendricks was gradually building an audience beyond his established R&B following.
After two previous studio albums, Kendricks finally experienced the success he was looking for with the self-titled album “Eddie Kendricks”, released on 18th May 1973 in the United States by Tamla Records. The producers on the album were Frank Wilson and Leonard Caston Jr., with additional production by Gloria Jones and Pam Sawyer. The album presents Kendricks as a mature and increasingly confident solo artist. It successfully combines romantic soul balladry with extended rhythmic arrangements that anticipated the emerging disco movement. The album peaked on the Billboard 200 Albums Chart at number eighteen, week-ending 3rd November 1973, spending over forty weeks on that particular chart. It also reached number five on the Billboard Soul and R&B Albums Chart, week-ending 15th September 1973. The album did not enter the Official UK Albums Chart.
The studio musicians on the recording sessions included some of the top session men and women on the West Coast alongside a few former members of the Funk Brothers from Detroit. The album’s rhythm section featured James Jamerson and Darrell Clayborn on bass, with Ed Greene and Kenny ‘Spider’ Rice on drums. Billy Cooper, Dean Parks, and Greg Poree played guitars, while Leonard Caston Jr. contributed piano, organ, and clavinet. Harold Johnson also played piano and organ. King Errisson was on congas, with Gary Coleman and Jack Ashford contributing additional percussion. These musicians provided the album with its combination of melodic Soul, syncopated Funk, and emerging dance-floor rhythms.
Frank Wilson and Leonard Caston Jr. served as the principal producers of the album. They produced the first seven recordings: ‘Only Room for Two’, ‘Darling Come Back Home’, ‘Each Day I Cry a Little’, ‘Can’t Help What I Am’, ‘Keep On Truckin’’, ‘Any Day Now’ and ‘Not on the Outside’. Gloria Jones and Pam Sawyer produced the closing track, ‘Where Do You Go (Baby)’, which originated from an earlier Detroit recording session. The tracks were written by a small team of songwriters headed by producers Wilson and Caston, which also included Don Daniels, Terri McFaddin, Kathy Wakefield, Gloria Jones, Pam Sawyer, and King Errisson. Two further tracks are covers: “Any Day Now”, written by Bob Hilliard and Burt Bacharach in 1962, and “Not on the Outside”, written by Larry Roberts and Sylvia Robinson in 1969.
The musical arrangements were created by Frank Wilson, James Anthony Carmichael, and Leonard Caston Jr. “Where Do You Go (Baby)” carries separate creative credits, with Robert White responsible for the arrangement and Paul Riser conducting the session.
Russ Terrana and Orson Lewis were the principal recording engineers. Frank Wilson undertook much of the mixing, with further mixing work credited to Russ Terrana, Andrew Berliner and, on ‘Darling Come Back Home’, Orson Lewis. Their engineering helped preserve the clarity of Kendricks’ high tenor and falsetto while balancing the album’s bass, percussion, keyboards, guitars, backing voices, and orchestral textures.
The next single from the album, released on 29th July 1973, proved to be Kendricks’ defining recording. It was the eight-minute version of “Keep On Truckin”, co-written by Leonard Caston Jr., Anita Poree and Frank Wilson, which transformed Kendricks’ solo career. The musicians made an essential contribution to the recording’s distinctive sound. Leonard Caston Jr. played clavinet and piano, while James Jamerson supplied the powerful bass foundation. Ed Greene performed on drums, King Errisson added congas, Dean Parks and Greg Poree played guitars, and Jerry Peters contributed organ. Their combined performances connected Motown’s established musical craftsmanship with the increasingly dance-orientated sound developing in the early 1970s moving towards the disco genre.
“Keep On Truckin’ (Part 1)” replaced Gladys Knight and the Pips’ “Midnight Train to Georgia” at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week ending 10th November 1973. “Midnight Train to Georgia” had occupied the top position for two consecutive weeks, dated 27th October and 3rd November 1973. Kendricks then remained at number one for two weeks before being replaced by Ringo Starr’s “Photograph” on 24 November 1973. On Billboard’s Hot Soul Singles Chart, “Keep On Truckin’ (Part 1)” reached number one for the week ending 6 October 1973. It remained at the summit for two consecutive weeks, replacing Stevie Wonder’s ‘Higher Ground’, before Gladys Knight and the Pips’ “Midnight Train to Georgia” moved into the top position on 20th October.
The single performed even more strongly on the Cash Box Top R&B Singles Chart. It entered that chart at number forty-seven on 11th August 1973and reached number one for the week ending 29th September 1973. It remained at the top for three consecutive weeks, dated 29th September, 6th October, and 13th October 1973, replacing Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On”. Gladys Knight and the Pips’ “Midnight Train to Georgia” succeeded it at number one on 20th October 1973.
These achievements demonstrate that “Keep On Truckin’’ was firmly established as a major Soul and R&B recording before completing its crossover journey to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart. It also reached number one on the Cash Box Top 100 Singles Chart for the week ending 3rd November 1973, one week before reaching the summit of the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart week-ending 10th November 1973.. Kendricks became the first and only former member of original Temptations to have successfully achieved a number one both on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart and the Cash Box Top 100 Singles Chart. The single had already sold more than 250,000 copies within a week of its American release, according to a contemporary Motown advertisement taken out in the Cash Box music industry magazine publishedby World Radio History. In its November 1973 edition, sales of one million copies were reported. The record eventually achieved worldwide million-selling plus status.
Produced by Frank Wilson alongside Leonard Caston Jr., with instrumental backing from the Crystal Sound Recording Players in Los Angeles, Eddie Kendricks’ “Keep On Truckin’’ blends richly layered Funk orchestration with an embryonic four-on-the-floor Disco pulse. At the centre of the recording is Kendricks’ signature soaring falsetto. His vocal performance moves effortlessly through the upper register, with expressive ad-libs reaching two octaves above middle C. Rather than simply displaying his vocal range, however, Kendricks uses changes in pitch, phrasing, and dynamics to generate excitement throughout the recording. His light tenor timbre floats above the heavier rhythmic foundation, producing an effective contrast between vocal delicacy and instrumental power.
The arrangement is driven by James Jamerson’s syncopated bass line, Ed Greene’s disciplined drum pattern, and King Errisson’s conga rhythms. Leonard Caston Jr.’s clavinet supplies a sharply articulated rhythmic texture, while the guitars, piano and organ strengthen the recording’s densely layered harmonic structure. The repeated rhythmic figures establish a persistent ostinato over which Kendricks develops his vocal lines. These interlocking instrumental parts create a propulsive groove that remains controlled, spacious, and irresistibly danceable, typical of the arrangements of the early 1970s and the extended, dance-orientated grooves that would become increasingly prominent during the disco era.
Eddie Kendricks became an increasingly important international recording artist for Tamla Motown during 1973, particularly following the extraordinary success of “Keep On Truckin’”. In the United Kingdom, the single reached number eighteen on the Official UK Singles Chart, remaining on the chart for fourteen weeks and establishing Kendricks as a successful solo artist beyond the American market. “Keep On Truckin’” gave Kendricks his major British commercial breakthrough.
According to Disc music magazine “Keep On Truckin’” was outselling Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” and was Motown’s biggest-selling single at that point. Combined with its million-selling international performance, the recording demonstrates that Kendricks had become a commercially valuable solo recording artist for Motown following his departure from The Temptations.
