The history of contemporary music includes many stories of artists who didn’t want to record the song that turned out to be their biggest hit, or who were taken by surprise when a tune they’d recorded topped the charts and became their all-time biggest hit. On the other hand, Otis Williams, leader and founding member of the Temptations, says that the first time he heard the final mix of "My Girl," he knew it was going to be a hit.

"I told Smokey (Robinson) that in the control room — that I felt like this was going to be a big record," Williams recalled last Friday as we were catching up on old times with an early morning telephone call. "When we did the basic (vocal) tracks, it was what it was … but the strings gave it a whole ‘nother kind of feel."

We were talking because Williams and the Temptations are returning to Hawaii next week for a short island tour with the Four Tops. It begins on Oahu on Thursday with a one-nighter in the Blaisdell Arena.

Night-life veterans of a certain age will remember seeing the Temptations at the Arena in 1972. The quintet was last here in 2007 for three nights, with Matt Catingub and the Honolulu Symphony in the concert hall. They sold out all three shows.

LOOKING back to the group’s earliest days, Williams said he never dreamed the Temptations would become one of the most popular male vocal groups of the 20th century.

"At that young age you just want to sing … and be successful, have a hit record, make money and keep the girls happy," he said.

"It was a fun-loving, young brother thing," he continued as we reminisced about Motown and the Detroit music scene in the early 1960s.

Williams assembled the Temptations in 1960 from members of two other groups. They began recording in 1961, but the lineup jelled in 1963, when David Ruffin joined founding members Paul Williams, Eddie Kendricks, Melvin Franklin and Williams. They first hit the Billboard Hot 100 the following year with "The Way You Do the Things You Do" and followed it with "I’ll Be in Trouble" and "Girl (Why You Wanna Make Me Blue)." All were good songs and regional hits, but none were Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100.

And then they recorded "My Girl."

Written and produced for the Temptations by Smokey Robinson and Ron White, "My Girl" was more than a No. 1 hit. It sold more than 1 million copies, earning the group a gold record. It then went on to become their first platinum single with total U.S. sales of more than 2 million copies.

The Temptations had three more No. 1 Hot 100 hits and five more platinum singles, but "My Girl" remains their musical signature.

Williams describes Motown’s first decade as being like Camelot — a magical time. He says the magic ended when Motown moved from Detroit to Los Angeles: "The vibe and everything changed tremendously."

Things changed, and most of the early Motown acts either retired or moved to other labels, but four decades later the Temptations are on tour almost 70 percent of the year.

Touring is much more enjoyable today than it was in the early ’60s, when racial segregation was still the rule in much of the South. Williams says the Motortown Revue played for integrated audiences, but the Temptations and other acts on tour "endured" the racist attitudes they encountered offstage.

"We had to deal with it as we dealt with it, continue on and stay single-minded of what we had to do (as entertainers). The prejudice was definitely there. We are called the N-word, and we couldn’t go into certain restaurants to eat, but all in all the music carried us through, and within the next year or so, we started finding out that certain barriers were being broken down."

"A large part of it — for us anyway — was our music. We endured (in the early years); we had our (bad) moments but we endured."

The Motortown Revue and its integrated audiences helped break down the barriers, Williams said: "The power of music is very strong. We’ve seen that many times."

HALF A CENTURY has passed since the early years. Williams is the only living member of the original hit lineup. Ruffin left in 1968, Kendricks and Paul Williams in 1971; all three are deceased. Otis Williams and Franklin continued on as the nucleus of the group until Franklin died in 1995.

Williams has continued to preserve and perpetuate the Temptations’ legacy. The current roster of Williams, Joe Herndon, Ron Tyson, Terry Weeks and Bruce Williamson released the Temptations’ newest album, "Still Here," in May. It’s available from online retailers.

Said Williams: "We have such a tremendous following, and the way our fans look up to us for what we do on the stage, we have to be there — 100 percent — every time we hit the stage," he said. "When we have guys that come in (as new members), they have to understand what it’s all about, being in the Tempts and carrying on the history that has been created."