Box Tops Albums
Elisabet Schwartzkopf
The Four Tops are an American vocal quartet from Detroit, Michigan. They were one of the most commercially successful American pop music groups of the 1960s and helped propel the Motown label to international fame. The group's repertoire has included aspects of soul, R&B, disco, adult contemporary, doo-wop, jazz, and show tunes.
Founded as the Four Aims, lead singer Levi Stubbs, Abdul "Duke" Fakir, Renaldo "Obie" Benson and Lawrence Payton remained together for over four decades, performing from 1953 until 1997 without a change in personnel. The Four Tops were among a number of groups, including the Miracles, the Marvelettes, Martha and the Vandellas, the Temptations, and the Supremes, who established the Motown Sound. They were notable for having Stubbs, a baritone, as their lead singer, whereas most other male and mixed vocal groups of the time were fronted by tenors.
The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 and into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1999. In 2013 into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame Rolling Stone ranked them #79 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
All four members of the group began their careers together while they were high-school students in Detroit. At the insistence of their friends, Pershing High students Levi Stubbs and Abdul "Duke" Fakir performed with Renaldo "Obie" Benson and Lawrence Payton from Northern High at a local birthday party. The quartet decided to remain together and named the group the Four Aims.[3] With the help of Payton's songwriter cousin Roquel Davis, the Aims signed to Chess Records in 1956, changing their name to the Four Tops to avoid confusion with the Ames Brothers.[3]
Over the next seven years, the Tops had unsuccessful tenures at Chess, Red Top, Riverside Records and Columbia Records.[3] Without any hit records to their name, they toured frequently, developing a polished stage presence and an experienced supper club act, as well as supporting Billy Eckstine. In 1963, Berry Gordy Jr., who had worked with Roquel "Billy" Davis as a songwriter in the late 1950s, convinced the Tops to join the roster of his growing Motown record company.[3]
During their early Motown years, the Four Tops recorded jazz standards for the company's Workshop Jazz Records label. In addition, they sang backup on Motown singles[4] by the Supremes ("Run, Run, Run", 1964), Martha and the Vandellas (on the 1966 hit "My Baby Loves Me") and others.[citation needed]
August 1966 brought the release of the Four Tops' all-time biggest hit and one of the most popular Motown songs ever. "Reach Out I'll Be There" reached number 1 on the U.S. pop and R&B charts[4] and the UK chart and soon became the Tops' signature song.[3] It was almost immediately followed by the similar-sounding "Standing in the Shadows of Love"; its depiction of heartbreak reflecting the opposite of the optimism in "Reach Out". It was another Top 10 hit for the Tops.[citation needed] The band recorded the first live album, Four Tops Live! at two dates in mid-1966 and Motown released the recording in November of that year.[5]
Their first major hit in a long time came in the form of 1970's "It's All in the Game", a pop Top 30/R&B Top Ten hit produced by Frank Wilson.[3] Wilson and the Tops began working on a number of innovative tracks and albums together, echoing Whitfield's psychedelic soul work with the Temptations. Their 1970 album Still Waters Run Deep was a forerunner of the concept album. It also served as an inspiration for Marvin Gaye's 1971 classic album What's Going On, the title track of which was co-written by the Tops' Renaldo "Obie" Benson.[3]
The 1971 single "A Simple Game" featured backing vocals from members of The Moody Blues.[3] The song did not fare well on the U.S. charts, but reached number three on the UK chart.[citation needed]
Motown as a company began to change during the early 1970s. Older acts such as Martha and the Vandellas and The Marvelettes were slowly moved aside or dropped to focus on newer acts, such as Michael Jackson and The Jackson 5, Rare Earth, and the now-solo Diana Ross. In addition, the company moved its operations from Detroit to Los Angeles, California, where Berry Gordy Jr. planned to break into the motion picture and television industries. In 1972, it was announced that the entire company would move west and that all its artists had to move as well. Many of the older Motown acts, already neglected by the label, opted to stay in Detroit, including The Funk Brothers studio backing band, Martha Reeves, and the Four Tops.[3]
The Tops departed Motown for ABC-Dunhill, where they were assigned to writer-producers Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter and the label's head of A&R, Steve Barri as producer, with The Tops' own Lawrence Payton later also serving as a producer and writer. He also took over lead vocal duties on several tracks.[citation needed]
After the release of "Catfish" (a top 10 R&B hit) in 1976, the major hits started to dry up and the Tops left ABC after an album recorded in Philadelphia with the MFSB musicians resulted in only minor chart success in 1978. The group disappeared from the recording scene until the early 1980s.[3] Signing a deal with Casablanca Records, the Tops made a comeback in 1981 with the number 1 R&B hit "When She Was My Girl".[3] Produced by David Wolfert, it just missed the Billboard pop Top 10, peaking at number 11. The group also scored a UK Top 10 hit with the song and had another hit there with the follow-up, "Don't Walk Away". In 1982, their song "Back to School Again" appeared in both the movie Grease 2 and its soundtrack.[citation needed]
The group re-entered the studio in 1986 with producer David Wolfert, who had previously produced them in many non-Motown releases.[6] Despite working on the release for several months[7] and issuing the single "Hot Nights" in July,[8] the sessions did not result in a new album and the group signed to Arista Records in 1987.[9] The title track of 1988's Indestructible was the group's final Top 40 hit, reaching No. 35.[3] It was also featured in the 1988 science-fiction cop film Alien Nation. Another track, "Loco in Acapulco", written and produced by British pop musician Phil Collins and former Motown composer-producer Lamont Dozier, climbed into the UK Top 10 and made number 7 in early 1989.[3] The Arista contract provided an opportunity to pair Levi Stubbs with fellow Arista artist, another R&B vocalist from Detroit, Aretha Franklin, who was at the height of her own 1980s hit streak. This pairing resulted in the 1988 song "If Ever a Love There Was", which became a popular R&B and Adult Contemporary hit, as well as being featured on the soundtrack of the 1988 motion picture I'm Gonna Git You Sucka.[citation needed]
After completing their European tour in December 1988, the group was scheduled to return to the U.S. for Christmas on the ill-fated Pan Am Flight 103, which was destroyed over Lockerbie, Scotland, after a terrorist bomb was detonated on board.[10][11] The group missed the flight due to a last-minute invite and prolonged filming of their performance at the British television show Top of the Pops; they instead took a later British Airways flight.[citation needed]
From the late 1980s, the Four Tops focused on touring and live performances. The group made guest appearances on labelmate Aretha Franklin's 1989 release Through the Storm and the 1992 Grover Washington Jr. album Next Exit, but they recorded only one album, returning again to Motown for 1995's Christmas Here with You. On June 20, 1997, 59-year-old Lawrence Payton died as a result of liver cancer, after singing for 44 years with the Four Tops who, unlike many other Motown groups, never had a single lineup change until then.[12] At first, Levi Stubbs, Renaldo "Obie" Benson, and Abdul "Duke" Fakir toured as a trio called The Tops. In 1998, they recruited former member of the Temptations Theo Peoples to restore the group to a quartet. By the turn of the century, Stubbs had become ill from cancer; Ronnie McNeir was recruited to fill the Lawrence Payton position and Theo Peoples stepped into Stubbs' shoes as lead singer. Stubbs died on October 17, 2008, at his home in Detroit.[13]
The group was featured in several television specials during this time, including Motown 45, and several by PBS, including a 50th-anniversary concert dedicated to the group (available on DVD). The concert turned out to be bittersweet; it featured a brief appearance of Levi Stubbs using a wheelchair, and a memorial to Lawrence Payton, announced by Renaldo "Obie" Benson. Benson appeared on one more PBS special and died on July 1, 2005, from lung cancer. The final PBS special, titled Motown: The Early Years, featured a message of Benson's passing following the credits.[citation needed]
The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990, and into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1999. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked them #79 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.[14] The Four Tops were inducted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame in 2005.[15]
The Four Tops sang the National Anthem before the start of game 5 for the 2011 baseball American League Championship Series (ALCS) between the Texas Rangers and Detroit Tigers on October 13, 2011, in Detroit, Michigan. When singing the last line of "The Star-Spangled Banner", "... and the home of the brave", they quickly sang the words "Ain't No Country Like the One I Got", before singing the last word, "brave". The Four Tops were honored with an induction into the Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame at the Inaugural ceremony held at Cleveland State University's Waetejen Auditorium on Saturday August 17, 2013.[citation needed]
Apple Music certainly has an idea. On Wednesday, the music streaming giant announced its 10 greatest albums of all time, with Lauryn Hill's iconic The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill from 1998 claiming the top spot. The record, Hill's debut, outranked other classics from Beyonc, the Beatles, Michael Jackson, Prince, Stevie Wonder, Kendrick Lamar, Amy Winehouse, Frank Ocean and Nirvana.
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