Boogie Down EDDIE KENDRICKS Video Steven Bogarat

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Early years: 1939–1960
Kendricks was born to Johnny and Lee Bell Kendrick in Union Springs, Alabama on December 17, 1939. He had one sister, Patricia, and three brothers, Charles, Robert, and Clarence.[citation needed] His family moved to the Ensley neighborhood of Birmingham, where he met and began singing with his best friend Paul Williams in their church choir in the late 1940s. In 1955, Kendricks, Williams, and friends Kell Osborne and Jerome Averette formed a doo-wop group called the Cavaliers, and began performing around Birmingham. The group decided to move for better opportunities in their musical careers, and in 1957 the group moved to Cleveland, Ohio on E 123rd and Kinsman. In Cleveland, they met manager Milton Jenkins, and soon moved with Jenkins to Detroit, Michigan, where the Cavaliers renamed themselves the Primes. Under Jenkins' management, the Primes were successful in the Detroit area, eventually creating a female spin-off group called the Primettes (later the Supremes). In 1961, Osbourne moved to California, and the Primes disbanded. Kendricks and Paul Williams joined forces with members Elbridge “Al” Bryant, Otis Williams and Melvin "Blue" Franklin of Otis Williams and the Distants after two members quit and became the Elgins, who on the same day changed their name to the Temptations and signed to Motown.