If we knew what our future had in store we would either crawl under the nearest stone or faint in disbelief. For myself, I could never have imagined in a million years that my love of Motown would lead to me joining the record company several decades later. Living in a small Sussex town (as it was then), I had dreams of somehow becoming involved in the music business but as my first love was for Black American artists, I knew the chances were slight. I was a country girl for goodness sake! However, the Four Tops paved the way for me, and I never looked back. Here’s a few thoughts on that journey….
I can’t remember how I first became aware of Dave Godin’s Tamla Motown Appreciation Society, although memories of talking to Dusty Springfield fan club members might have been a possibility as I was one of the secretaries helping Pat Rhodes to cope with her hugely successful fan club. Anyway, I joined Dave’s club and delighted in the adventures of visiting artists, but, being young and miles from London, wasn’t able to participate in their events.
Buying records too was quite a feat as no record shops automatically stocked Motown, so I had no choice but to have a standing order for everything released in this country – and on my secretarial salary that was a helluva stretch. Driving my parents mad with the constant Motown beat bursting forth from their hi-fi unit, I acquired a reel-to-reel machine, taped the records, and relocated to my bedroom to indulge in Motown binges that were dominated by the Four Tops. Long story-short then, because you know how easily I get diverted, when the TMAS closed down, Dave worked with Margaret Phelps in Motown’s International Department to allocate individual artist fan clubs across the UK. I applied for the Four Tops, my first love after Martha and the Vandellas.
Other clubs opened up and in time, thanks to advertising in music papers like Disc & Music Echo, all the club secretaries became friends. We were fanatical about Motown. Well, to be honest, we had to be because running a fan club, while seeming to be fun on the outside, was a costly business. Sure, Margaret Phelps provided photos, records (sometimes) and advertising material, but we needed to pay for copying the photos, the printing of membership cards and regular newsletters, and so on, as the annual membership fees scarcely scratched the surface. But we loved it!
Here’s a picture of one of my first newsletters, crudely printed on a stencil machine after hours at my place of work. How I didn’t get caught beats me. You should be able to make out that DJ Johnnie Walker was the club’s president, while Dusty Springfield was honorary president. Both agreed when I asked their permission to use their names. Other celebrities also received the newsletters.
By 1970, my fan club became integrated with other clubs as Motown Ad Astra was born in London, which catered for all company acts. This decision was made with the blessing of Motown/US because several of the secretaries had relocated to London, and it was felt that dealing with one club now would offer members a better service. One thing I do remember is, we were practically crippled with import duty on records posted to us by Motown. And a social life that didn’t involve the company was practically non-existent.
When acts began touring the UK in earnest, they were made aware of their fan club status and who ran them. Why this wasn’t done when the club first opened, I don’t know, because their personal touch in the way of a note or two for inclusion in newsletters would have been such a major coupe. Motown visitors were young; inexperienced in travelling abroad, while bringing with them Maxine Powell’s instructions on how to conduct themselves in a foreign country, reigning in any thoughts of misbehaving in public. They represented Motown and if anything distasteful was reported to Berry Gordy, they would be heavily fined and reprimanded.
Levi Stubbs, Renaldo ‘Obie’ Benson, Lawrence Payton and Abdul ‘Duke’ Fakir were, all the times I was in their company, perfect young gentlemen. Caring, engaging and oh, so suave in their persona. And, dare I risk being sexist here, so very good looking – with their boyish looks, short hair and welcoming smiles. Their absolute joy at being successful in the international world was often too much for them to accept, but their love of the UK never wavered. British fans accepted their music from the word go, and remained loyal – as only they know how to do – throughout the years that followed, irrespective of their recorded success. “..British people have treated us so royally, so lovingly, over the years,” said Duke one time. “Where I come from, it feels almost like a fairy tale….Music has taken me all over the world. But my favourite trip is always to the UK. We’ve made so many friends over the years.”
They were a credit to Motown and themselves, and while the UK was strong in its loyalty, so were the group members to each other. Despite being the lead vocalist – the voice – Levi refused to have a separate billing when others did, like Diana Ross and the Supremes, and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. He also turned down solo opportunities to stay with the group, his family in music. And I loved this about him and them; they looked out for each other, while their combined love was apparent when we met. I digress….
Anyway, armed with said membership card, I was able to visit my favourite group when their tours included venues near my home town. One such concert was in Brighton, and as my mum was such a huge asset to the fan club by collating and posting the newsletters, I took her to see them. The concert was fabulously exciting and extremely noisy from screaming fans, while backstage adrenalin ran high. If you think theatre backstages are rubbish these days, let me assure you, back then they were dire. Dressings rooms were uninviting places to be in, while corridors and walk ways were on the dark side. Yet it was all part of the excitement of being in a different world (no pun intended). Once introductions were over, mum and I settled into comfortable conversation with the group, highlighted with Levi opening a bottle of champagne, and handing round glasses of fizz.
They asked questions about the British music scene, and I suppose, we were curious to find out about their lives. It would be a familiar pattern with visiting Motowners because they always wanted to know about our music, particularly The Beatles – and any chance of meeting them! Then it was time for mum and I to to leave that dressing room in Brighton as other people were chomping at the bit to get in. So it was hugs all round, with Levi kissing my mum on the cheek. A lovely gesture we smiled as we left, yet when she told my dad afterwards, he was not happy. How dare a Black man kiss his wife. Mum and I were so ashamed at his words, and sickened at such narrow-mindedness, that when we’d finished berating him, we refused to talk to him on the journey home. However, I’m happy to say, it was an isolated incident yet sadly indicative of the thinkings of some people during the sixties.
I caught the group in concert wherever I could. However, one London concert in particular I missed – but another more than made up for it. The Four Tops took the city by storm in 1966 with a couple of sell-out concerts at the Saville Theatre on 13 November. The Beatles’ manager, Brian Epstein, who owned the Saville at the time, promoted the visit following a trip to Detroit to see the group. He paid them $32,000 to appear on the Sunday before “Reach Out I’ll Be There” topped the UK chart, Motown’s second charttopper after The Supremes’ “Baby Love” two years earlier.
The “On Top” album was released to coincide with the two shows. Support acts were Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers, and Bob Miller’s Millermen, with compere Tony Hall. While in the city, they also covered radio and television, including a spot on Ready Steady Go! “Brian set up (the concerts) and made it possible for us to be accepted in the UK” recalled Duke. “He promised something and he made it come true. I’ll never forget him.” Then, when told “Reach Out I’ll Be There” had hit the top spot, Lawrence gushed over the Atlantic phone “You British started something in the charts over here…It’s a great sound and I reckon your music has become a permanent part of the American scene. So it’s a great honour for us to have a big hit with you.”
Duke Fakir remembered the recording session for the charttopper because Levi was deliberately pushed to the top of his vocal range “to make sure he’d have that cry and hunger and wailing in his voice.” When the track was completed, the group disliked it so much, they begged Berry Gordy to ditch it. Thankfully, the boss disagreed. Interestingly, “Reach Out I’ll Be There” was one of the few songs written for them that they recorded first. For example, Holland, Dozier, Holland penned “This Old Heart Of Mine” for them but it was given to The Isley Brothers before the Four Tops could record it. Smokey Robinson pinched “(Come ‘Round Here) I’m The One You Need” to release it, albeit it in a higher key, with The Miracles. and Kim Weston released “Helpless” as a single while the Four Tops’ version was relegated to an album.
The Four Tops 1967 tour, again promoted by Brian Epstein, kicked off on Saturday 28 January with two shows before fourteen thousand people at London’s Royal Albert Hall, followed by sell-out performances in Liverpool, Leeds, Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham and other major cities. Two shows were played on each date. Their support acts this time were Madeline Bell, The Merseys, and the Johnny Watson Band. Once again Tony Hall was the show’s anchor. “Standing In The Shadows Of Love” was released to coincide with these nine dates. A note of interest here: for the first time in music history, a special sound system was installed in the Albert Hall in an endeavour to reproduce the Motown sound on stage. We were ecstatic. My friends and I on the first row of the balcony got so carried away, we tore up newspapers into tiny pieces and threw them over the auditorium. You ask why? I have no idea. Critics too fell over themselves in praise. One glowed, “Not even in the wildest moments of our wildest dreams could any of us have imagined what happened on Saturday night at the Albert Hall. It was the Saville Theatre twenty times over. It was a spectacle on a scale you wouldn’t have expected outside a mammoth film productions. It was like the fanatical exultation of the Nuremberg Rallies, the incredible enthusiasm of a World Cup football crowd.”
We were crying out for the Four Tops before they stepped on stage, and when they ran on the cheers soared to the roof and bounced back off the lights. I’m thinking they didn’t have to work for the audience’s reaction, but they did. They sang because of it and because of the love relationship they had with their audience. In the stalls, they rushed forward and surged fifteen deep round the base of the stage, while behind it they stood, swayed and clapped their hands above their heads. The Albert Hall was a swaying, dancing, weeping mass of people and I was part of it. The fact that I remember the evening so vividly is testament to the grandness of the occasion. Sadly, Brian Epstein never saw the group repeat this success because he committed suicide on 27 August 1967.
While the Four Tops were making headlines and breaking records in the UK, two of their fellow groups shared the billing at Anaheim’s Melody Theatre for a week with an advance pay cheque of $95,000. This was the first time Diana Ross and the Supremes and The Temptations had appeared together in Los Angeles. This successful combination led to them recording together, another huge money spinner. This had a knock-on effect as a certain Motown boss decided to merge the Four Tops with The Supremes (Jean Terrell, Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong) with hopes of repeating the 1968 success of The Temptations with Diana Ross, Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong. Their first album was aptly titled “The Magnificent Seven” in September 1970; UK release in May 1971, from which “River Deep Mountain High” was released. Levi and Jean exchanging lead vocals was a sheer delight. By 1971 “The Return Of The Magnificent Seven” – with the groups dressed as cowboys and indians – and “Dynamite” with its tacky front sleeve, had been released. A melting pot of writers and producers, including Ashford & Simpson, Clay McMurray, Harvey Fuqua and Johnny Bristol, injected magic into some of the inferior material on these albums. If I had to choose, I’d say “The Magnificent Seven” was by far the superior of the three, yet perhaps that had something to do with the initial novelty element.
Returning to 1970, 23 May to be exact, the Four Tops played to a packed house at Finsbury Park, and I joined in the wonderful euphoria of their performances. Dressed in white suits, blue shirts and pink ties, they had the audience with them from the first song. I wrote, or should I say, gushed, in Motown Ad Astra’s TCB magazine: “As soon as the opening bars of ‘Reach Out’ were heard, the audience raised to roof to the point of mass hysteria. This was followed by ‘Baby I Need Your Loving’. The slick choreography has gone, but who cares.” I won’t bore you with the twenty-two year-old me burning up the pages with superlatives but suffice to say, the hits were included like “I’ll Turn To Stone”, “It’s All In The Game”, and “Barbara’s Boy”. The venue really rocked with “I Can’t Help Myself”, “I Got A Feeling” and, of course, “Reach Out, I’ll Be There”. A little mishap occurred at the close of their act. When the safety curtain came down, it narrowly missed hitting Obie, but cut Levi off, leaving him front stage. When he couldn’t open the curtain either, he shrugged off safety restrictions to jump down into the audience, shaking hands and hugging a few, as he walked to the exit door and out into the night air!
The next night was Fairfield Halls in Croydon. Unlike the previous evening, fans rushed to the stage after the opening song, and those who couldn’t get there, danced by their seats. This time, the group wore blue suits with black shirts, but their jackets were soon discarded when the temperature rose. When “Reach Out, I’ll Be There” kicked off, about one hundred fans climbed onto the stage to dance and sing with them. Then when the song finished, they returned to their seats, with the group yelling, “You’re too much. You’re beautiful, and we love y’all!” Show over, and to backstage where crowds waited for autographs. So, once they had cooled down, the Four Tops joined everyone outside to chat and sign. Hundreds of happy fans, including myself, went home that night.
That a group should bring so much joy to so many people is a rare quality. That they stayed together through the decades is testament to their love and loyalty: family is key. We lost Lawrence first. He died from liver cancer on 20 June 1997. Obie had a leg amputated in 2005 due to an ongoing circulation problem and lung cancer was also diagnosed. He died of this and other illnesses on 1 July 2005. Levi was diagnosed with cancer in 1995, and after a stroke five years later, had to give up touring. On 27 October 2008, he died in his sleep. “I lost my three best friends. We were like brothers, we loved each other, respected each other, depended on each other.”
Then Duke, who had struggled with bladder cancer, suffered heart failure, and grew his angel wings to join his beloved friends on 22 July 2024.
Sharon Davis
