David Ruffin
It was in Ruffin's travels as a teenager that he met such later popular musicians as Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Frankie Lymon, Bobby Womack, The Staple Singers, Swan Silvertones and The Dixie Hummingbirds.
After some of his singing idols such as Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson had left gospel music and gone secular, Ruffin also turned in that direction. Eddie Bush and his wife, Dorothy Helen, took the then-16-year-old Ruffin to Detroit, Michigan, where his brother Jimmy was pursuing a career in music while simultaneously working at the Ford Motor Company. After moving to Detroit with the Bushes, Ruffin recorded his first released record with the songs "You and I" (1958) b/w "Believe Me" (1958). These songs were recorded at Vega Records and released under the name "Little David Bush", using the last name of his guardian. Ruffin would later recall how he initially recorded "a different kind of music", strongly influenced by the smoother pop and R&B of the time, when he first recorded in Detroit for Vega.
In 1957, Ruffin met Berry Gordy Jr., then a songwriter with ambitions of running his own label. Ruffin lived with Gordy's father, a contractor, and helped "Pops" Gordy do construction work on the building that would become Hitsville USA, the headquarters for Gordy's Tamla Records (later Motown Records) label. Ruffin's brother Jimmy would eventually be signed to Tamla's Miracle Records label as an artist.
