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"Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" is a psychedelic soul song, written by Motown songwriters Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong as a single for Motown act The Undisputed Truth in 1971. This version of "Papa" was released as a single in early 1972, and peaked at number 63 on the pop charts and number 24 on the R&B charts. Later that year, Whitfield, who also produced the song, took "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" and remade it as a 12-minute record for The Temptations, which was a number-one hit on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 and won three Grammy Awards in 1973. While the original Undisputed Truth version of the song has been largely forgotten, The Temptations' version of the song has been an enduring and influential soul classic. It was ranked #168 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, one of the group's three songs on the list. In retrospect, The Temptations' Otis Williams considers "Papa" to be the last real classic the group recorded. ==Overview== Beginning with an extended instrumental introduction (3:53 in length), each of the song's three verses is separated by extended musical passages, in which Whitfield brings various instrumental textures in and out of the mix. A solo plucked bass guitar part, backed by hi-hat cymbals drumming, establishes the musical theme, a simple three-note figure; the bass is gradually joined by other instruments, including a blues guitar, wah-wah guitar, Wurlitzer Electric Piano notes, handclaps, horns, and strings; all are tied together by the ever-present bass guitar line and repeating hi-hat rhythm. A very unusual thing about this song is that it uses only one chord throughout the entire song -- B-flat minor. Vocal jobs are performed in a true ensemble style: Temptations singers Dennis Edwards, Melvin Franklin, Richard Street (who was a frequent fill-in for Paul Williams and his eventual replacement) and Damon Harris (who had replaced Eddie Kendricks as the group's falsetto singer the previous year) alternate vocal lines, taking the role of siblings questioning their mother about their now-deceased father; their increasingly pointed questions, and the mother's repeated response ("Papa was a rollin' stone/wherever he laid his hat was his home/and when he died, all he left us was alone") paint a sombre picture for the children who have never seen their father and have "never heard nothing but bad things about him." Friction arose during the recording of "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" for a number of reasons. The Temptations did not like the fact that Whitfield's instrumentation had been getting more emphasis than their vocals on their songs at the time, and that they had to press Whitfield to get him to produce ballads for the group. In addition, Dennis Edwards was angered by the song's first verse: "It was the third of September/That day I'll always remember/'cause that was the day/that my daddy died". While legend has it that, coincidentally, Edwards' father had died on that date, making him apprehensive of recording the song, Edwards' father actually died on the third of ''October'', not September;〔Ribowsky, Mark (2010). ''Ain't Too Proud to Beg: The Troubled Lives and Enduring Soul of the Temptations''. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-470-26117-0. p. 232〕 the other half of the legend — that Norman Whitfield forced Edwards to rerecord his parts dozens of times until he finally got the angered, bitter grumble he desired out of the usually fiery-toned Edwards — was true.〔 Whitfield's treatment of the group eventually led to his dismissal as their producer.〔 The guitar parts were played by a young Paul Warren 〔 http://thepaulwarrenproject.com/about/)〕 and Melvin Watson Melvin "Wah-Wah Watson" Ragin 〔(【引用サイトリンク】title= A brief history of Wah Wah Watson )〕 The Temptations' version of "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" followed in the extended-length "cinematic soul" tradition of the work of Isaac Hayes and others, and future songs like Donna Summer's fourteen-minute "Love to Love You Baby" and the instrumentals of MFSB expanded upon the concept in the mid-1970s. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Papa Was a Rollin' Stone」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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