The Four Tops

Unlike fellow vocal harmony groups; The Temptations and The Drifters, The Four Tops maintained a very settled line-up with the original quartet staying together for forty four years before death and illness forced them into making changes.

The members; Levi Stubbs, Abdul Fakir, Renaldo Benson and Lawrence Peyton actually knew each other and formed while at High School in Detroit and christened themselves the Four Aims. They took on their more familiar name in 1956 when they signed to Chess Records.

They achieved very limited success but their well-honed live performances were enough to convince Berry Gordy to sign them to Motown in 1963. United with the in-house writing team Holland-Dozier-Holland the group found success beginning with the single, Baby I Need Your Loving.

By 1965, they had their first chart-topping hit with I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch) and followed it up with arguably their biggest ever track, Reach Out, I’ll be There. Unfortunately like many Motown acts they were adversely affected by the departure of Holland-Dozier-Holland from the label at the end of the sixties and their output declined in quality.

A psychedelic soul direction in the seventies saw them achieve a number of hits (albeit less regularly); they also worked with the Supremes in an act called The Magnificent Seven.

The group left Motown when the label relocated in 1972 only to return in 1983. The last album to be released was Christmas Here With You in 1995 but the group have continued to tour. Of the original line-up Payton died in 1997 he was followed by Benson in 2005 and Stubbs in 2008.

Fakir is the sole survivor of the original line-up alongside Roquel Payton (son of Lawrence), Theo Peoples and Ronnie McNeir.