The Temptations Celebrate 60 Years (and 1 Billion Streams) of ‘My Girl’: ‘A Group of Our Ilk Should Have Been Through a Long Time Ago’

variety.com:

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Otis Williams’ nickname is “Oak,.” Given that the 83-year-old singer is still a member of the Temptations, 64 years after the group’s founding, it’s not to figure where that came from.

He’s been the sole original member in the group since the early ’90s, in fact, and is still on the road and in the studio with the perpetually reconstituting Motown group… the lone member who can talk about the transformative era that really began when “My Girl” was released almost exactly 60 years ago, on Dec.

21, 1964. In honor of the 60-year celebration of the Temptations’ first No. 1 hit, the Temptations have been out on the media circuit, plugging a song that really needs no plugging — clearly, from the fact that Spotify recently certified it as racking up a billion streams on the service.

This past week, they were out doing the morning shows, climaxing with a Friday appearance on CBS in the a.m. that had them serenading Gayle King as a surprise for her birthday — with the tune modified, conveniently, to “My Gayle.” Other recent high-profile gigs included singing the National Anthem (no, they didn’t change it to “My Country”) for the New York Mets before Game 5 on the NCLS in October, because team superstar Francisco Lindor had spent the season bringing “My Girl” into the stadium every night as his walk-up music.