For more than 50 years, The Temptations have prospered, propelling popular music with a series of smash hits and sold-out performances throughout the world. The Motown group has been named the “#1 R&B/Hip Hop Artists of All Time” and one of the “125 Greatest of All Time Artists” by Billboard magazine, as well as one of the “100 Greatest Artists of All Time” by Rolling Stone. The group will be in concert at the Saenger Theatre on Friday, January 15, preceded by The Four Tops.

The Temptations are the recipients of numerous awards and honors. Out of nine nominations, they have won four Grammy Awards, in addition to being awarded the Recording Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards in 2013. The Temptations received their first, as well as Motown’s first, Grammy Award at the 11th Annual Grammy Awards in 1968 for the Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group, Vocal or Instrumental, for their song “Cloud Nine.” They won their next two Grammy Awards at the 15th Annual Grammy Awards in 1972 for the #1 Billboard Hot 100 Hit, “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone,” which won a total of three Grammy Awards that year: Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo, Group or Chorus; Best R&B Instrumental Performance, awarded to the Temptations and Paul Riser; and “Best Rhythm Blues Song,” awarded to Barrett Strong and Norman Whitfield as songwriters. The group won their fourth Grammy Award at the 43rd annual Grammy Awards in 2000 for their Top 20` R&B Album, Ear-Resistible for the “Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance.” “My Girl” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998, and “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” was inducted a year later in 1999.

In 1989, The Temptations were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Blockbuster number one hits “Just My Imagination,” “Papa was a Rollin’ Stone,” and “My Girl” are among the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll. The group was also inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1999, and into the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame in 2013. They were invited back to the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame in 2017 to receive The R&B Male Group of the 20th Century Award. They received the NAACP Image Hall of Fame Award in 1992.

The Four Tops’ first Motown hit, “Baby I Need Your Loving,” recorded in 1964, made them stars and their ’60s-era track record on the label is indispensable to any retrospective of the decade. Their songs, soulful and bittersweet, were across-the-board successes. “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch),” a number one R&B and Pop smash in 1965, is one of Motown’s longest-running chart toppers. It was quickly followed by a longtime favorite, “It’s The Same Old Song” (ranking number two on R&B and number 5 on pop charts). Their commercial peak was highlighted by a romantic trilogy:  “Reach Out I’ll Be There,” “Standing In The Shadows Of Love” and “Bernadette”—an extraordinary run of instant H-D-H classics. Other hits by The Four Tops hits included “Ask The Lonely,” “Shake Me, Wake Me (When It’s Over),” “Something About You,” “You Keep Running Away,” “7-Rooms Of Gloom” and their covers of “Walk Away Renee” and “If I Were A Carpenter.”

When Motown left Detroit in 1972 to move to Los Angeles, the steadfast Tops decided to stay at home, and with another label. They kept up a string of hits with ABC-Dunhill for the next few years: “Ain’t No Woman (Like The One I’ve Got),” a Top Five hit; the Top 10 “Keeper Of The Castle”; and the R&B Top 10’s “Are You Man Enough (from the movie Shaft In Africa),” “Sweet Understanding Love,” “One Chain Don’t Make No Prison” (later covered by Santana), “Midnight Flower” and the disco perennial “Catfish.”

For Rolling Stone’s 2004 article “The Immortals – The Greatest Artists Of All Time,” Smokey Robinson remembered: “They were the best in my neighborhood in Detroit when I was growing up (and) the Four Tops will always be one of the biggest and the best groups ever. Their music is forever.”

Tickets for The Temptations and The Four Tops are on sale at ticketmaster.com. Tickets will also be available at the Saenger Theatre box office located at 1111 Canal Street and open Monday through Friday from 12 to 4 p.m.