Four Tops
Fourever (Motown) This explains a lot. Like the paucity of Four Tops repackages by Motown, a veritable assembly line for reissues of its bejeweled catalog: Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, the Supremes, Temptations, Stevie Wonder. Following lavish box sets of these aforementioned heavyweights, Fourever is the latest chrome-polished 4-CD rollout from Detroit’s real Motor City miracle. And it’s not the ride you envisioned. It’s not one long, fun-filled dance sequence from The Big Chill. For starters, the Tops’ first single was for Chess in 1956, and by the time they signed with Motown in ’63, they were polished pros who’d gone from a Mills Brothers/Four Freshman harmony mold to a burnished jazz combo, backing the likes of Count Basie, Joe Henderson, and Billy Eckstine. Even after they climbed aboard Berry Gordy’s gold Caddy, the quartet was still cutting jazz sides. Then Gordy introduced them to Brian and Eddie Holland and Lamont Dozier. Hello jamming oldies: “Baby I Need Your Loving,” “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch),” “It’s the Same Old Song,” “Reach Out I’ll Be There,” “Walk Away Renee,” “Standing in the Shadows of Love,” “Bernadette.” When Gordy and HDH split, Fourever‘s fab booklet minces no words: that’s when the “well ran dry.” The Tops, who survived intact ’til 1997, had more hits, most notably “Ain’t No Woman (Like the One I Got),” but their pop chart heyday was over. Thus, Fourever‘s first two discs, ’56-’66 and ’66-’69, rarely jell outside the group’s HDH productions, the Tops sounding like a group forced to crossover most of the time. The second half, ’70-’73 and ’74-’92, is better, the group giving into its R&B side, but even then, memorable moments are far between. Still, listening to Levi Stubb’s baritone rasp soar over Renaldo “Obie” Benson’s bass, Abdul “Duke” Fakir’s climbing tenor, and the late-great Lawrence Payton’s middle tenor for nearly five hours is an unheralded joy.
This article appears in December 7 • 2001.