On January 18, 1941, in the unincorporated rural village of Whynot, Mississippi, 15 miles outside Meridian, Mississippi, Davis Eli Ruffin was born.
He was the third child of Baptist minister Elias “Eli” Ruffin and his wife Ophelia Ruffin. Jimmy Lee Ruffin, Reada Mae Ruffin, and Quincy B. Ruffin were his siblings. Rosine, another sister of Ruffin, passed away when she was a young child.
Ruffin recorded his first issued record with the songs “You and I” (1958) b/w “Believe Me” after moving to Detroit with the Bushes (1958). These tracks were created at Vega Records under the name “Little David Bush,” which was his guardian’s last name. Later, Ruffin would describe how his early recordings for Vega in Detroit were of “a different style of music,” much influenced by the era’s smoother pop and R&B.
Ruffin met Berry Gordy Jr. in 1957, who was a composer at the time and wanted to start his own record label. Ruffin resided with Gordy’s contractor father and assisted “Pops” Gordy with construction work on the structure that would become Hitsville USA, the main office for Gordy’s Tamla Records label, which subsequently changed its name to Motown Records. In the end, Tamla’s Miracle Records company would sign Jimmy, Ruffin’s brother, as an artist.
How many hits did David Ruffin have?
David Ruffin had 35 hits with the temptations troupe.
