I do love the Four Tops, and although I’ve never been a big fan of live music (I much prefer studio tracks), I did see them live once.
I’m going back a few years, when I was a teenager, and they were at Wolverhampton Civic Hall.
Thinking about what would be my favourite track though, nothing really came to the fore. In reality there are numerous songs, all seriously competing for that honour.
In the end though, I’m going for I’m In A Different World. With the extremely successful – and brilliant – partnership of Holland-Dozier-Holland departing Motown, this was their final recording with the Four Tops.
Although they still made great records after, in the main, as far as I’m concerned, they never really captured the magic of the H-D-H years.
I do particularly like the Keeper Of The Castle era of the seventies though.
They even left Motown themselves before returning (twice) in the later years of their career. Although they still exist today, with just one original member still alive, in many ways it’s just the name that continues.
I’m In A Different World reached number twenty-seven in the UK charts. While with Motown, they had twenty-three chart singles here, the most successful being Reach Out I’ll Be There, which was their only number one this side of the Atlantic Ocean.
It also reached the peak in the USA, along with I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch).
The vinyl that I’m holding in the lead image is Reach Out, the final album to be produced by the H-D-H team, before they left Motown.
Where do you start with the Four Tops. Levi Stubbs a great soul voice sadly like so many others silenced. My favourite would be Baby I Need Your Loving as a niter I used to go in Manchester to would often finish with that song.
I genuinely struggled to choose one, there’s so many.
That’s a good one, would also be in the mix, which is a big mix!