Eddie Kendricks ~ Girl You Need A Change Of Mind 1972 Soul Purrfection Version

The original tempting Temptations were David Ruffin, Eddie Kendricks, Otis Williams, Melvin Franklin and Paul Williams. Beginning with the timeless classic " My Girl" in 1965, they became the finest R&B vocal group on the planet.

In 1968 David Ruffin quit the band and then the falsetto voiced Eddie Kendricks left in 1971. He faltered for a few years but gained national attention with his "Keep On Trucking" that hit #1 on the pop and R&B charts in 1973. One year before, he released "People... Hold On" that contained "Girl You Need A Change Of Mind" a record the disco historian Vince Aletti calls "one of the best dance records ever made". Aletti was based on New York City and recorded the rise of disco 1974-1978 for his weekly Disco File column in Record World that now is the definitive biography of the era.

The song became popular because of the steady drumbeat and the catchy way the song stopped and and kept on groovin' several times. Motown producer Frank Wilson was "shocked" to find out that "Girl" was a hit in the New York city discos as he thought that radio would embrace it, but it entered the Hot 100 at #95 on Feb 24, 1973 but could not rise above #87 and fell off the survey the following week.

The song influenced disco music because it was all about the break and that became the standard of all the disco/club music that followed. It also impressed this little disco kitty. The song starts slowly, builds in fervor and then breaks down, builds again to another peak, drops off and then build, but this time the shirts came off and audience participation in the form of hoots and hollers as the crowd gets off...a visceral reaction shared with everyone in the room, cos we were all feeling it.