David Ruffin; Former Vocalist With the Temptations

David Ruffin, the sandpaper-voiced, bespectacled former lead singer of Motown’s Temptations and crooner of such 1960s soul standards as “My Girl,” “Beauty’s Only Skin Deep” and “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg,” died Saturday of an apparent drug overdose, Philadelphia police reported. He was 50.

Police officials said a limousine driver brought a stricken man into the emergency room at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, claiming that the man had overdosed on drugs. The man, who died at 3:55 a.m., had no identification. An FBI check of his fingerprints revealed that it was Ruffin, who had previous brushes with the law over drug and tax violations. Police were uncertain whether Ruffin was residing or only staying in Philadelphia.

Davis Eli Ruffin was born Jan. 18, 1941, in Meridian, Miss. As David Ruffin, he joined the Temptations in 1962, the year after the group was signed by Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr. for his fledgling record label in Detroit.

After several early recordings in which group members traded vocals, Ruffin, reed-thin and always wearing trademark black glasses, came to prominence with 1965’s “My Girl,” his raspy voice at the forefront of the No. 1 hit.

The Temptations were quickly groomed as the label’s male version of The Supremes, tutored in intricate dance steps and given a polished nightclub act. Through the mid-1960s, Ruffin was the group’s main vocalist, relinquishing the spotlight rarely to vocalist Eddie Kendricks.

Ruffin left the group in 1968 to pursue a solo career, continuing to sing about love as the Temptations turned to more protest-laden material such as “Cloud Nine” and “Papa Was a Rolling Stone.”

He rejoined the group briefly in 1982 and with Kendricks and the pop duo, Hall and Oates, hit the charts a final time in 1985 with a medley of Temptations songs recorded live at New York’s Apollo Theater. About the same time, he participated in the anti-apartheid anthem, “Sun City.” In recent years, Ruffin continued to tour with Kendricks. In 1989, both men rejoined the Temptations for one night in New York as they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Ruffin’s survivors include his brother, Jimmy, also a former Motown singer, who recorded “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted” and sang with his brother in a 1970 duo.