Post by Motorcity on Aug 5, 2004 21:46:38 GMT -5
Still Standing In The Shadows Of Motown
Inside the tiny house where Motown Records began, Abdul Fakir is standing in famed Studio A, pointing out the worn spots on the floor where he and other members of the Four Tops stood when cutting their records.
He gestures to the sound booth, where the songwriters Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland sat, tweaking their arrangements. Motown's founder, Berry Gordy, stayed in his office upstairs in a house next door. But Mr. Gordy could hear the session through the walls. "If he came down, you had a hit," recalled Mr. Fakir, known as Duke.
On a day last month, a group of tourists descends the stairs. They fill the small studio, now part of the Motown Historical Museum, clamoring for autographs. Eulalio Brown of Port Huron, Mich., awaits his moment. Posing for a picture with Mr. Fakir, Mr. Brown, who claims a collection of Motown records "as big as Motown itself," is asked what set the Four Tops apart. "Longevity," he says, noting their five decades as recording artists. Yet time has ravaged the Tops, too.
Half the group no longer performs, including Levi Stubbs, whose gravelly voice was the signature of almost every song. Younger replacements have felt the sting of audiences who wanted nothing to change. Hits are scarce, too: the last was 15 years ago. But while other groups of their era have broken up or been relegated to county fairs, the Tops still draw crowds to summer amphitheaters, where they crisply perform classics like "Standing in the Shadows of Love," as well as jazz tunes and fresh pop material.
And while the group is split on whether to continue if another original member can't go on, the Tops aren't packing up their sequined tuxedos just yet. On Wednesday, the group marks its 50th anniversary at a concert here that is being taped as their first television special.
Lifelong friends like Aretha Franklin and Mary Wilson, an original Supreme, will be on hand at the Detroit Opera House, honoring the group that was formed after its four original members, then high school students, met at a party in 1954.
Mr. Fakir, 68, will join Renaldo Benson, known as Obie, who is also 68, along with the two newest Tops, Ronnie McNair, 54, and Theo Peoples, 43. Mr. Peoples, formerly of the Temptations, will take on the parts sung by Mr. Stubbs, who stopped singing four years ago, felled by ill heath.
Now confined to a wheelchair, Mr. Stubbs, who declined to be interviewed, last appeared in public in April, at a benefit in Detroit.
The other original Top, Lawrence Payton, died in 1997. Their absence makes the anniversary bittersweet. "It's like having one body with two limbs missing," Mr. Benson said over a lobster lunch last month in a downtown Detroit restaurant.
Not that the new members have had it easy. Mr. Peoples, the youngest Top, watched fans walk out of concerts when they discovered that he, not Mr. Stubbs, was singing lead. Not that he blamed them. "They're loyal fans of Levi's," Mr. Peoples said. "I can't take that as an insult."
The Tops frequently team up with Mr. Peoples's former group, the Temptations, with whom they first sang on Motown's 25th-anniversary special in 1983. Audiences sometimes confuse the two groups, given that they consist of identically dressed black men (five in the case of the Temptations) who sing in harmony and perform dance routines. But numbers tell the story: over the years there have been 21 Temptations, but only 6 Tops. And for the first 43 years, simply Mr. Fakir, Mr. Benson, Mr. Stubbs and Mr. Payton.
Mr. Fakir credits the quartet's closeness to the years they spent bouncing around the jazz club circuit. Leaving Detroit for New York, they shared a studio apartment and rotated three suits among them. (The Top with the most important appointment had first pick, Mr. Fakir said.)
The Tops toured with the jazz balladeer Billy Eckstine, who admonished them to forgo fancy dance steps until they had mastered their songs, as well as Count Basie and his orchestra. In 1963 they landed on the Jack Paar "Tonight" show, singing a jazz arrangement of "In the Still of the Night."
Inside the tiny house where Motown Records began, Abdul Fakir is standing in famed Studio A, pointing out the worn spots on the floor where he and other members of the Four Tops stood when cutting their records.
He gestures to the sound booth, where the songwriters Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland sat, tweaking their arrangements. Motown's founder, Berry Gordy, stayed in his office upstairs in a house next door. But Mr. Gordy could hear the session through the walls. "If he came down, you had a hit," recalled Mr. Fakir, known as Duke.
On a day last month, a group of tourists descends the stairs. They fill the small studio, now part of the Motown Historical Museum, clamoring for autographs. Eulalio Brown of Port Huron, Mich., awaits his moment. Posing for a picture with Mr. Fakir, Mr. Brown, who claims a collection of Motown records "as big as Motown itself," is asked what set the Four Tops apart. "Longevity," he says, noting their five decades as recording artists. Yet time has ravaged the Tops, too.
Half the group no longer performs, including Levi Stubbs, whose gravelly voice was the signature of almost every song. Younger replacements have felt the sting of audiences who wanted nothing to change. Hits are scarce, too: the last was 15 years ago. But while other groups of their era have broken up or been relegated to county fairs, the Tops still draw crowds to summer amphitheaters, where they crisply perform classics like "Standing in the Shadows of Love," as well as jazz tunes and fresh pop material.
And while the group is split on whether to continue if another original member can't go on, the Tops aren't packing up their sequined tuxedos just yet. On Wednesday, the group marks its 50th anniversary at a concert here that is being taped as their first television special.
Lifelong friends like Aretha Franklin and Mary Wilson, an original Supreme, will be on hand at the Detroit Opera House, honoring the group that was formed after its four original members, then high school students, met at a party in 1954.
Mr. Fakir, 68, will join Renaldo Benson, known as Obie, who is also 68, along with the two newest Tops, Ronnie McNair, 54, and Theo Peoples, 43. Mr. Peoples, formerly of the Temptations, will take on the parts sung by Mr. Stubbs, who stopped singing four years ago, felled by ill heath.
Now confined to a wheelchair, Mr. Stubbs, who declined to be interviewed, last appeared in public in April, at a benefit in Detroit.
The other original Top, Lawrence Payton, died in 1997. Their absence makes the anniversary bittersweet. "It's like having one body with two limbs missing," Mr. Benson said over a lobster lunch last month in a downtown Detroit restaurant.
Not that the new members have had it easy. Mr. Peoples, the youngest Top, watched fans walk out of concerts when they discovered that he, not Mr. Stubbs, was singing lead. Not that he blamed them. "They're loyal fans of Levi's," Mr. Peoples said. "I can't take that as an insult."
The Tops frequently team up with Mr. Peoples's former group, the Temptations, with whom they first sang on Motown's 25th-anniversary special in 1983. Audiences sometimes confuse the two groups, given that they consist of identically dressed black men (five in the case of the Temptations) who sing in harmony and perform dance routines. But numbers tell the story: over the years there have been 21 Temptations, but only 6 Tops. And for the first 43 years, simply Mr. Fakir, Mr. Benson, Mr. Stubbs and Mr. Payton.
Mr. Fakir credits the quartet's closeness to the years they spent bouncing around the jazz club circuit. Leaving Detroit for New York, they shared a studio apartment and rotated three suits among them. (The Top with the most important appointment had first pick, Mr. Fakir said.)
The Tops toured with the jazz balladeer Billy Eckstine, who admonished them to forgo fancy dance steps until they had mastered their songs, as well as Count Basie and his orchestra. In 1963 they landed on the Jack Paar "Tonight" show, singing a jazz arrangement of "In the Still of the Night."
The Tops are in a class all by themselves 
