- Clarence Fountain: It was a chorus dat we came out of at school. We picked the best voices we thought dat could sing. We put 'em together and made a quartet. 1944. We said we were gonna hit de road. And you comin' up, you don't know what's ahead of you. All you know is what's behind you. We hit de road and didn't look back.
- Ira Tucker: I was 14. Said to my mother, I said, "You know I've been tellin' you I'd like to make some more money to try to help to take care of you, you know. These Hummingbirds want me to go with them. You have a problem with me going?" I went and told the fellas, "Look, I'm not goin' anywhere. My mother's in there cryin'." So, she said, she came and said, "Oh yes, he is. He's goin'. God is gonna take care of me. Now, when you get to the door, don't look back." And one of the hardest - things that I've ever tried to do - in my *life* - was tryin' to keep from lookin' back.
- Issac Freeman: Sunday was always the biggest day. If you didn't make it on Sunday, forget about the rest of the week as far as makin' anything.
- Clarence Fountain: Dey had de state run deaf and the blind school. And you had people dat de state hired to come and werk at de school. Didn't have no trainin'. Didn't know nutin' about nutin'. And so, you didn't learn nutin'. Dey had a supervisor dat didn't like nobody. He put enuf whupins on us to last us a lifetime.
- Dennis Edwards: Get your shirt out of the cleaners, go to the next church and they raise the offering, the third offering, pastor gonna get the first two, you know, you know.
- Dennis Edwards: We all formed a little group called the Revelation Wonders. We had a big show at the Ebenezer Baptist Church and we were opening up for a young man from Chicago by the name of Sam Cooke - and the Soul Stirrers. He was - so smooth. He could tear your house up - with three lyrics.
- [sings]
- Dennis Edwards: There was a woman, In the Bible days...
- Clarence Fountain: If you never got on a record, you still was nobody. Everybody who knew somebody, was on a record.
- Otis Clay: I was born in Mississippi. And then, of course, we call it a suburb of Mississippi, is always Chicago. You know, so I moved to the suburb.
- [smiles]
- Dennis Edwards: Gospel was huge back then; but, it was - we had our own special audience. But, the people that loved us, didn't have any money. You know, so...
- Issac Freeman: Pulled his wallet out. Them were big bills, man, a bunch of 'em, boy. He had enough money to choke a goat, man. That's true.
- Dennis Edwards: Although you sing really good when you sing rock-n-roll, it's difficult to get into that zone of feeling, you know, and touching.
- Ira Tucker: He cursed me, man. He called me a broke whatchamacallit and said, "You can get some money now." And I said, "Look, man, I came in here singin' gospel. When I go outta here, I'm gonna be singin' gospel."
- Dennis Edwards: When I got in the Temptations, I'm telling my mother, I said, "Mother, I'm gonna be in the greatest group in the world." She say, "I'm gonna pray for you." She say, "Why are you singin' for the devil?" And I remember, I'd buy a cars and stuff and she always asks me, "You didn't steal that, did you?"
- Dennis Edwards: Your young and you want to sing, you harmonize, you go - you go in the alley and you try to get three or four guys together and you harmonize until it sounded great. And people would run us off the corner, "Get that mess away from my house. Go down the block." We go down the block. That's how the Detroit sound actually started.
- Clarence Fountain: I've done my time. We've come a long ways. And, to be precise, we've come - a *long* way.
- Dennis Edwards: It wasn't an easy life. But, I tell you what, it gave each one of us that since of pride and that sense of dignity and it made us better people.
- Ira Tucker: My grandfather raised me. He said to me, "One day, if you keep on singin', you'll be all down in Florida singin'." Man, when I got to Gainesville, Florida, we stopped at a red light and I got out and grabbed around a tree and wet that tree of cryin'. My grandfather had never been out of the *county* of where he lived. Never had been anywhere. But, yet he could tell me, "be all down in Florida singin'." That gave me strength to - to bust through.