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| The Four Tops |
| The Four Tops are many things to many people, to some they are the quintessential Motown group. To others they are the soul icons of the 1970's and still to others they are they Rock N' Roll Hall Of Famers that have been together over 40 years. To us they are disco contributers of the first order. Levi Stubbs and Abdul "Duke" Fakir sang together in a group while attending Pershing High School. While Renaldo "Obie" Benson and Lawrence Payton were boyhood friends and attended Northern High, all in Detroit's North End. It was while singing at a friends birthday party in 1954 they found out they were good at it. They began practicing the next day and soon began calling themselves the Four Aims. Roquel "Billy" Davis was Larry Payton's cousin, who sometimes sang with the group as the fifth Aim, sent a demo tape to Chess Records in Chicago. They were sent a bus ticket and invited to Chicago to audition. It seems that Chess though was more interested in Davis' writing skill than the group. However Davis' persistence ended up with their being signed to Chess Records in 1956. They then changed their name to the Four Tops to avoid confusion with the Ames Brothers. They recorded one single with Chess "Kiss Me Baby' which flopped. They then went to Red Top and Riverside before they were signed by John Hammond to Columbia in 1960 where they recorded "Ain't That Love." This was the first of a string of supper club style flops that lasted for several years on a number of labels.The Four Tops toured with the Billy Eckstine revue in the early 1960's. By 1964, they had signed with Berry Gordy's Motown Records. Gordy had them record "Breaking Through" for his experimental Workshop Jazz subsidiary. Later that year they were finally directed toward contemporary soul. Under the wing of Motown's top production and recording team, Holland-Dozier-Holland, the Four Tops were launched with "Baby I Need Your Loving," which went to #11 in 1964. Over the next eight years The Four Tops appeared on the charts almost thirty times, and Levi Stubbs became an international star and an influence on singers from the Sixties to the present. The Four Top's 1965 hits included: "Ask The Lonely" (#24), "Same Old Song" (#5), and "I Can't Help Myself" (#1). "Reach Out And I'll Be There" hit #1 in October, 1966, followed by "Standing In The Shadows Of Love" (#6) in 1967. Other 1967 hits included "Bernadette" (#4) and "Seven Rooms Of Gloom" (#14); but when Holland-Dozier-Holland left in 1967, their charting hits declined. In fact two of their biggest hits of 1968 were covers: the Left Banke's "Walk Away Renee" (#14) and Tim Hardin's "If I Were A Carpenter" (#20). However, the Tops did record a number of adventurous and successful records with other Motown producers, including "River Deep, Mountain High," with the Jean Terrell led Supremes (#14 pop, #7 R&B, 1970) and "Still Water" (#11 pop, #4 R&B, 1970. In addition Obie Benson co-wrote Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" during this period. In 1972, the Four Tops moved to ABC/Dunhill records where they recorded a couple of million sellers "Keeper Of The Castle," (#10) and in 1973 "Ain't No Woman" (#4). It was only a brief pop chart resurgence, but the Tops continued to have Top 20 R&B hits. After landing on ABC in 1972 they had eight album releases until their depature in 1978 when the label folded. They scored their first disco entry in 1976 with "Catfish," a tale about a disco queen from New Orleans who dances up a storm. It may have been a little risqué for radio stations, with the line "makes my nature rise" being the point of contention. A percolating organ introduces the song, punctuated by a string of "well wells" from the Tops before Levi Stubbs' Type A baritone enters the foray and mesmerizes you. The next year they had their first 12" single release with "The Show Must Go On," an energetic ode to the age-old showbiz ethic, it was a big disco hit and even managed to chart R&B in late 1977. The next year they released their second 12" single and last for ABC. "H.E.L.P." along with it's parent album "At The Top" were produced by Norman Harris at Sigma Sound in Philadelphia; the songs, productions, and singing deserved a better fate. Considering ABC's financial state the album didn't receive the proper promotion that it deserved and sales were dismal. In 1981 they moved to Casablanca Records and had a hit with "When She Was My Girl." Sadly disco was over and they had missed being on the prime disco label during disco's heyday. Two years later they were back at Motown and after performing in a "battle of bands" with the Temptations on the Motown 25th anniversary television special, they began the first of several co-headlining tours with the Temptations, billed as "T 'n' T." The first tour ran nearly three years, went around the world, and included a sold out stint on Broadway. They also recorded a couple albums of new material that failed to sell well, and wound up leaving Motown amid confusion over proper musical direction. Meanwhile, Levi Stubbs provided the voice for Audrey the man-eating plant in the film version of "Little Shop Of Horrors." The Four Tops next appeared on Arista, where in 1988 they scored their last Top 40 pop hit, the aptly titled "Indestructible" The 12" single also gave them a club hit, their first in over ten years. In 1989 the Four Tops appeared on Aretha Franklin's "Through The Storm" album. The Four Tops were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990, and continued to tour the oldies circuit. In 1997, Lawrence Payton passed away due to cancer of the liver, which proved to be the only thing that could break up the Four Tops. After some consideration, the remaining members hired Theo Peoples to take Payton's place on tour. Today the elder statesmen of R&B still tour to delighted fans across the globe, we thank them for their disco contributions and can only imagine what could have been had they been on the right label during disco's golden era..... |
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