Eddie Levert

Replacing a cog here, a valve there, the Temptations are one Detroit model that has kept running strong for almost 30 years--and a few weeks ago, this definitive Motown soul group was awarded a designated parking place in the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. But even a classic car won't yield a peak performance if it's missing a spark plug or if its steering system is out of whack, as was the case at the Celebrity Theatre in Anaheim Friday night.

Cheers greeted Janet Jackson when she appeared on the stage of the Shrine Auditorium on Sunday at the end of the BET Awards, but her face was etched with pain. For several moments, her mouth quivered, and it looked as if she might not be able to speak. "My entire family wanted to be here tonight, but it was just too painful, so they elected me to speak for all of us," she finally said. It was only three days since her brother Michael Jackson died suddenly, shocking the world.

A far more interesting match than the Mike Tyson fight was on tap Saturday night at Irvine Meadows: an R&B Sophomore Summit bringing together the smooth young professionals of Boyz II Men and the volatile and sassy ladies of TLC. But the more interesting corner came up empty: TLC wouldn't perform, the announcement came, because one member was ill. Which member and what ailment were left unspecified, nor was it clear whether TLC would be able to play Sunday's finale to the weekend engagement.

Perhaps it's fitting that music critics often characterized the fervid baritone of soul music icon Teddy Pendergrass, who died from colon cancer on Wednesday at 59, as having the metaphoric power of an earthquake -- rumbling, potent, vital. Two days ago, a catastrophic earthquake struck the island nation of Haiti, leaving in its wake incomprehensible tragedy mingled with everyday stories of heroic acts of courage. Pendergrass, whose mainstream commercial career declined in the aftermath of a 1982 spinal cord injury resulting from an automobile accident, spent the last two decades living out his own version of resilience in the face of tragedy.

Here are the major winners of the 27th annual NAACP Image Awards, which were presented Saturday night at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.

"Shall we do it the old-school way?" Earth, Wind & Fire's lead singer, Philip Bailey, asked that rhetorical question Thursday at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim before launching the most pyrotechnical vocal moment of a triple bill in which EW&F, the Isley Brothers and the O'Jays illuminated the virtues of old-school soul singing. Chief among those was talent--exhibited in the skyrocketing Saturn 5 of a falsetto liftoff Bailey used to cap one of EW&F's signature smooth pop-soul ballads, "Reasons."

Roll over, Bob Marley, and tell ol' Ludwig the news. The news Tuesday night at the Coach House was that "world beat" has become such a nebulous term that it evidently can be stretched to encompass the sight and sound of a dreadlocked Jamaican playing riffs from Beethoven's Fifth on a cello.