Eddie Kendricks only topped the charts once after leaving The Temptations, but when he did, it was with a doozy of a track. Tom Breihan makes the case that “Keep On Truckin’” was the first disco song to top the charts, which may well be true. He also says that it’s more of a groove than a song, which is definitely true. There’s a radio edit, but who cares? You want the full eight minute experience.
This track has been important for hip-hop for two reasons. First, it’s been sampled by Mr Cheeks, J-Lo, EPMD, Raheem, Lil’ Kim, and many other artists. Second, Eddie Kendricks is the namesake of Kendrick Lamar.
“Keep On Truckin'” was produced by funk/soul/disco auteur Frank Wilson. Eddie Kendricks had quit the Temptations in part because he didn’t like producer Norman Whitfield’s psychedelic soul approach, but Wilson’s epic disco vibe also sounds suspiciously like psychedelic soul. Leonard Caston Jr plays the devastating clavinet part. The great James Jamerson plays bass, Ed Greene plays drums, Gary Coleman plays vibes, King Errisson plays congas, Dean Parks and Greg Poree play guitar, and Jerry Peters plays piano and organ. There are also unnamed horn and string sections. The texture is dense: four layers of percussion, three keyboards, two guitars, vibes, horns, strings, and layers of Eddie Kendricks’ voice. It could easily be a mess, but Motown cats know how to stay out of each others’ way, and the mix and arrangement are exceptionally tight. It’s rare for a club banger to be a good solitary headphone listen (and vice versa), but this track works equally well in both contexts.
“Keep On Truckin'” may have disco-like production and grandiosity, but its groove is classic early 1970s funk: heavily swung sixteenth notes, hi-hats ticking away on the eighths, snares smacking the last sixteenth note in the bar to keep you paying attention, muted wah-wah guitar going chicka-chicka on the sixteenths. The tempo starts around 98 BPM, and by the end has picked up to about 104. Motown players keep excellent time, but no one could resist speeding up through a groove this exciting.
Here’s a section-by-section breakdown.
Intro: mm 1-4 (0:00)
If it feels like you’ve been dropped into the middle of the song, it’s because you basically have. The intro is an instrumental version of the prechorus, and you won’t hear it in context until later on. Starting the song with a piece of musical connective tissue is harmonically disorienting. The first two chords are Db7 and Bb7. Usually the first chord in a groove is the tonic, but if that’s true, then Bb7 would be a strange followup. Or maybe Bb7 is the tonic? But then Db7 would be a strange lead-in. Anyway, Db7 and Bb7 are repeated, and the answer becomes clear: they must be the bVI7 and IV7 chords in F or F minor. Presumably, we’ll be landing on the tonic in the next section.
Chorus 1/Break 1: mm 5-10 (0:10)
Except, no, we don’t. Instead of the F or F minor you were expecting, there’s a groove on Ab major, with some embellishing Absus4 chords thrown in on the guitar. So maybe Db7 and Bb7 were actually the IV7 and II7 chords in Ab? Strange, but appealing. At measure 9, there’s a Bb7, which sounds like it might be V7/V in A-flat. But then at measure 10, there’s a break on C7sus4, which retroactively explains the Bb7 as actually being the IV7 chord in F like you were originally led to believe. At the end of the break, there are two quick hits on a gospel-like Fsus4, which further set up the expectation that you’ll get a resolution to F on the next downbeat.
Build: mm 11-12 (0:25)
There is indeed a very quick F7 chord on the downbeat, but the clav immediately starts walking up the F minor pentatonic scale. When you hear minor pentatonic over a dominant seventh chord, that’s a sure sign of blues tonality. I would label this short section as being in the key of F blues.
Main Groove 1: mm 13-20 (0:30)
The groove opens up into eight bars of the F Dorian feel that will dominate the later parts of the track.
Prechorus 1: mm 21-24 (0:49)
This is the same as the intro, but now we know what’s going on: the Db7 comes from F minor blues, and the Bb7 comes from F blues or F Dorian.
Chorus 2/Break 2: mm 25-30 (0:59)
This chorus has the same basic feel as the first one: an Ab major groove with a few Absus4 chords for ornamentation. This time, however, one of the guitarists is playing licks in the Ab blues scale. If we were supposed to hear F as being the global key center, then the F blues scale would seem to be the more obvious choice. Hearing Ab blues instead suggests that Ab is the “real” key center, at least right now.
Build 2: mm 31-32 (1:14)
The same F blues feel as Break 1.
Main Groove 2: mm 33-40 (1:19)
Another eight bar F Dorian groove.
Prechorus 2: mm 41-44 (1:38)
Same as prechorus 1, which is familiar by now.
Chorus 3: mm 45-49 (1:48)
Same as the previous choruses.
Break 3: mm 50-54 (2:00)
F blues, four times as long as the previous breaks.
Breakdown 1/Hits: mm 54-65 (2:10)
Twelve bars of F Dorian: four quiet bars, then dramatic hits on the “and” of 2 in measures 58, 60, 62, and 64. Hip!
Main Groove 3: mm 66-85 (2:39)
Twenty bars of F Dorian, with a vibes solo, then the clav and wah-wah guitar trading licks.
Prechorus 3: mm 86-89 (3:28)
Same as other prechoruses, but now with church-y organ.
Main Groove 4: mm 90-133 (3:38)
You’re expecting the chorus again, but no, it’s back to the main groove. It starts restrained but quickly builds in intensity. From here on out, we stay in F Dorian, and all structure comes from orchestration and groove. The strings trade blues riffs with the rest of the band, a neat arranging trick.
Breakdown 2/Outtro Groove: mm 134-202 (5:21)
There’s a dramatic break that would make a logical ending for the track, but it’s not even close to being over. The groove breaks down to just congas and tambourine. The other instruments are faintly present, but very quiet. Then they gradually re-enter. The band must have kept on grooving straight through this, and then the breakdown and re-buildup were constructed at the mixing desk in postproduction. This is really what makes the song sound like disco: major compositional choices made by the producer at the mixing stage, using the multitrack recording of a live performance as raw material rather than the finished product.
The track doesn’t actually end, it fades out. Remember how it didn’t exactly have a beginning, either? You get the sense that “Keep On Truckin'” really lasts for hours or days, and you just happen to have caught eight minutes of it. Songs have a beginning, a middle, and an end, but a good groove is potentially infinite.