Shirley Veronica Bassey was born in 1937, in Tiger Bay, Cardiff. Her father was a Nigerian seaman and her mother came from Yorkshire. Tiger Bay was a tough neighbourhood and Shirley was the youngest of seven children. At age two her mother was left a single parent.

Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie was born in 1948 in Lennox Castle, Lennoxtown, Scotland, the daughter of a butcher. Marie grew up in Dennistoun, Glasgow, where she attended Thomson Street Primary School and Onslow Drive Junior School.

The Four Tops came from Detroit and started as a high school band called The Four Aims (1954). The lineup was lead singer and Jackie Wilson‘s cousin, Levi Stubbs (1936 -2008) , Abdul "Duke" Fakir, Renaldo "Obie" Benson (1936 – 2005), and Lawrence Payton (1938 – 1997) and signed to Chess Records in 1956.

The Temptations formed in 1961 and were made up of singers from several doo-wop groups. The Cavaliers (1955-57), The Primes (1957 -1960), The Siberians/The El Domingoes (1958 -1959), Otis Williams & The Distants (1959 -1960), and The Elgins (1959 - 1960). The Elgins re-christen themselves, The Temptations before signing with Miracle Records, a subsidiary of Motown Records in 1961.

A cover version (or cover) is a new rendition (performance or recording) of a recently recorded song. A re-record, by comparison, takes place long after the original was released. The term "cover version" came to imply rival commercial recordings of the tune aimed at different tastes.