The Four Tops came to Motown in 1963 with ten years working together already notched up. They joined the Workshop Jazz subsidiary label!
The four members of the group originally met at a party in Detroit in 1953. Two of them, Levi Stubbs and Abdul “Duke” Fakir, were students at Pershing High School, whilst Renaldo “Obie” Benson and Lawrence Peyton attended Northern High. They all loved singing and obliged their friends by singing together at the party. Soon, they had formed the Four Aims vocal quartet and were set for a career in the music industry.
In 1956, Lawrence Peyton’s cousin Billy Davis arranged an audition for the young men at Chess Records in Chicago, where they were duly offered a contract. (Billy Davis clearly impressed Leonard and Phil Chess too, as they hired him as Head of A&R for their new R&B division.)
The Four Aims soon become the Four Tops (to avoid any confusion with the Ames brothers) and cut their first single “Kiss Me Baby”, a Doo-Wop composition. When it failed to make a mark, the group left. They tried Red Top and Riverside Records, but still found success elusive, so signed with Columbia and spent their time singing Jazz and old standards. Thus it was that Berry Gordy gave them a trial at Workshop Jazz.
Fortunately for the four lads, Gordy quickly realized that they had potential in a much more lucrative area. He scrapped the projected Jazz standards album that they were working on and put them to work with Holland, Dozier, Holland at the end of 1963. The H-D-H magic dust soon transformed them into stars. It was a significant decision, typical of Berry Gordy’s creative vision.
The Four Tops 1968 (Photo: Ron Kroon / Anefo, Wikimedia Commons)
The Four Tops were ready to shine, after ten years, patiently waiting for the right moment. Finally, Motown issued their first two singles in 1964.
“Baby I Need Your Loving” appeared in July, with the UK release following in September. The group had finally been assigned to the Holland, Dozier, Holland team, who came up with a fantastic song with a strong vocal arrangement. Just four of the Funk Brothers were in the studio band: Earl Van Dyke (piano), James Jamerson (bass), Robert White (guitar) and Benny Benjamin (drums), with a string section drawn from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the Andantes providing backing vocals. Gil Askey wrote the string arrangement. It was a perfect set-up, and the Four Tops were not going to miss their chance. They established a brilliant rapport with the Andantes, so that the seven voices meshed smoothly, and the final performance had everyone smiling. The single rose to number eleven on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart. In the UK the song was covered by the Fourmost, one of Liverpool’s Merseybeat bands, who took the song to number twenty-four on the UK Official Pop Singles Chart.
At first glance, that may not seem too impressive, but it was a major breakthrough for the long-serving group members, who had made a promise to stick together ten years before. At last, they had found a place where they could fulfil their potential. The song has gone on to become a Motown classic, selling over a million copies thanks to its timeless quality and earning the group their first gold disc from Motown’s Promotion & Marketing department. It deserved to be number one.
The follow-up single, “Without the One You Love (Life’s Not Worth While)”, appeared in November. Despite being produced by the same team, the song lacks the drama of the previous hit. It reached number forty-three on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart. They could do much better.
The Four Tops released four singles and two albums during the year. Having had hits with two Holland, Dozier, Holland songs, they surprisingly found themselves teamed up with Mickey Stevenson for their next release in January 1965. “Ask the Lonely” is a slow ballad, written by Stevenson and Ivy Jo Hunter, with Levi Stubbs taking the soaring lead vocal. The harmonies with the Andantes are once more complex and beautifully integrated with the string section drawn from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. The B-side is “Where Did You Go” co-written by the Holland brothers and Lamont Dozier. The song reached number twenty-four on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart and number nine on the Billboard R&B Singles chart. It is a good song, well-produced, but they needed something dramatic to take them to the top.
In April the follow-up provided just that. Holland, Dozier, Holland took charge once more, with Stevenson and Hunter providing the B-side. “I Can’t Help Myself” starts with a piano riff that is repeated several times with bass and other instruments joining in. The rhythm is simple and insistent, with repeated breaks typical of the Holland, Dozier, Holland hooks. Then Levi Stubbs pleads his feelings for his favourite girl. It is irresistible. Actually, Stubbs didn’t like the song. He felt that the lyrics were too syrupy. Fortunately, the public disagreed. The single went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart for two non-consecutive weeks in June and July and spent nine weeks at the top of the Billboard R&B Singles chart. According to Billboard, it was the biggest R&B hit of the year. At last the four boys who sang together at that party in 1953 had fulfilled their dream.
The song has been released twice in the UK, once in 1965, charting at number twenty-three on the UK Official Pop Singles Chart, and then in 1970, when it reached number ten, earning a platinum disc from the BPI.
The follow-up, “It’s the Same Old Song”, was rushed out in July to counter an attempt by Columbia Records, the group’s former label, to take advantage of the number one success by re-releasing an old Columbia recording “Ain’t That Love”. Berry Gordy’s reaction when he learned of the Columbia plan was to give the Motown team a deadline to get a new song out… just one day! Lamont Dozier and the Holland brothers soon came up with their own plan. They had written and recorded a song with the Supremes in May that was still unused, so they quickly adapted it to suit the Four Tops and went into the studio the following day. The engineers worked through the night (not unusual at Motown) and by the following day they had cut fifteen hundred copies of the record for circulation to DJs across America. The song went to number five on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart and number two on the Billboard R&B Singles chart, also charting at number thirty-four in the UK. (The Supremes’ original version appeared in 2017, although they also re-recorded the song in its new version for a 1967 album). The song has the usual infectious beat of the Motown classics, emphasized by Mike Terry’s punchy baritone sax and lifted by Jack Ashford’s tambourine.
In October came the fourth single of the year, “Something About You Baby”, another hit from the Holland, Dozier, Holland team. The song reached number nineteen on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart and number nine on the Billboard R&B Singles Chart. Unusually, the opening riff is provided by Robert White on guitar and is repeated throughout the song. It has the feel of a Rolling Stones number, although Keith Richards would have added a fuzz box!
In November, the Four Tops’ “Second Album” was released by Motown, featuring the last three of the year’s hit singles by the group. The quality of the twelve songs chosen for the album aptly sums up the breakthrough made by the group, as they entered 1966 poised to become one of Motown’s best acts.
