Yester-day I listened to the first disc of the Temptations' Anthology, so I'm listening to the second disc to-day. I noticed something about "Funky Music Sho Nuf Turns Me On." At about 1:07, there's a vocal phrase that stays on a single note for just over three whole measures, dips a little before rising again, and then trails off as it descends. It sounded familiar to me because an almost-identical phrase is in Sly & the Family Stone's "Sing a Simple Song," which I listened to as part of their Anthology a few days ago. In "Sing a Simple Song," it first appears at about 0:40. The two phrases start on different notes, but the intervals are the same (they might start to diverge near the end though).
I lookt up the dates in the liner notes, and "Sing a Simple Song" is from 1969 where "Funky Music Sho Nuf Turns Me On" is from 1972, so it seems that the Temptations took that phrase from Sly & the Family Stone.
