Jimmy Ruffin - What Becomes of the Brokenhearted (HQ)
Farewell Is A Lonely Sound
BABY I’VE GOT IT – 1966 Tamla Motown
WHAT BECOMES OF THE BROKEN HEARTED
I’ve Past This way Before
I’ll Say Forever My Love
Gonna Give Her All The Love I Got
I Gotta Let You Go
Everybody Needs Love
He Who picks A Rose
“It hit me like a ton of bricks one day…”
BABY I’VE GOT IT – was a big soul hit at Manchester soul clubs. It was the ‘B’ side of Jimmy Ruffin’s biggest hit WHAT BECOMES OF THE BROKEN HEARTED. This was also frequently played track at Original Northern Soul venues.
Jimmy Ruffin and Brother David started out as alternate lead singers with The Temptations with their cousin Melvin Franklin.
In the UK he was on the Tamla Motown label and the SOUL label, a subsidiary Motown label in the States. Jimmy’s follow up release’s including I’VE PAST THIS WAY BEFORE but he never again reached the heights of ‘Broken Hearted’, until the 1970’s with the fantastic – TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT – and “Gonna Give Her All the Love I’ve Got”. Could it be that he ignored a strong ‘B’ side? With his brother David, the Ruffin Brothers released a cover of Ben E. King’s “Stand by Me” .
With RSO Records he had his last hit – Hold On to My Love – produced by Robin Gibb (Bee Gees).
Late sixties and “He Who Picks A Rose” was a major club hit all over Manchester and the UK: Soul music was now no longer an underground scene, well the music, it had gone mainstream. So many a collector shunned this and others and dived deeper into obscure material – thus was born that Northern Scene!
1998 – He moved to England.
Jimmy Ruffin – Wikipedia