Damon Harris is back. . . and if the name sounds familiar, here's why. In 1971, he embarked upon a career that brought him nine gold records, three Grammy Awards and the acclaim of audiences around the world; and that's not even the best part.He became what all good American boys dream of. No not president; something bigger. A Temptation. Maybe they weren't immortals, but it sure felt like it.

Maybe not gods, but if you were a child of the 1960's, it was hard to tell the difference through the stars in your eyes and the cheering in your throat. They were the Temptations and it was more than enough.So tall, they might be giants. So sharp, you could cut yourself on their creased pants. So cool, a stray glance could make you shiver. Temptations, David, with that angular frame and that rasp of ungodly pain in his voice.

Melvin, with those round eyes and that bass that went down for miles. And Eddie, pretty enough to be a girl, he was, voice floating above the lyric like a balloon floating above the street on the clearest day of the summer. The way they did the things they did was. . . glorious. And out in the audience, this kid named Damon was drinking it in like a desert traveler would drink water, watching and listening with every pore, scared to blink for fear of what he'd miss. "I was spellbound," he says now. "The main thing that was on my mind was. . .how do you become that? How did they become what they were? The just seemed so much larger than life". And he was, after all, just a kid who felt he would "never, be able to surpass their image and what they were. But, oh, just to be like that". . .

How it all began . . .
He didn't just love the Temptations, he LIVED them. Child of a Baltimore barber and his domestic worker wife, raised in middle class comfort, Damon had previously dreamt of a career in professional sports. Everything changed after he was well. . .tempted. After that, he "brought more Temptation albums to school than I brought books," and even conducted likeness recording sessions in the school music room. Most of all, though, he sang, perfecting a sweet, pure falsetto that was, he confesses, "a consummate likeness of Eddie". It was an imitation that carried him through his teen years, through stints in local groups with names like the Tempos and the Vandals. Carried him until he decided it couldn't carry him any further. "It didn't seem pragmatic to think I was going to be successful doing Eddie Kendricks and imitating the Temptations," he says. So he met with his group, tendered his resignation and walked out, intending to enroll in college. Instead, he walked into a lady he knew. "She asked if I had heard Eddie had left the group. I said, yeah; who hadn't?"

The Tempts were staying at a hotel down in Washington, she said, and were not real happy with Eddie's interim replacement. "I think you should have the opportunity to audition for them," she told Damon. "Would you like to?" I said, "What do you think?" Washington is about 45 minutes south of Baltimore by car. "I think I made it in 15", says Damon. He sang individually for the other Tempts before being presented to founder Otis Williams. Otis didn't make it easy. He sat astride a chair, his chin tucked in his palm, his head turned away, listening. "That's what he did the while time I sang", says Damon. "I didn't know whether he was going to laugh or not. I got mad and consequently, I sang the hell out of the song. After I finished he said, "I'll talk to you later and let you know."

Worried, dejected, hopeful, Damon wandered home to Baltimore to wait for the call. When it finally came, it wasn't the lightning bolt from the blue that he might have hoped. Instead, just a friendly invitation to come to the show. He stood in the wings, watching the group go through its paces, wondering if there was a place for him. Then, as the Tempts were leaving the stage, Melvin Franklin fixed him with a look and said simply, "Get ready. Learn this stuff."