The Four Tops are an American vocal quartet from Detroit, Michigan who helped to define the city’s Motown sound of the 1960’s. Founded as The Four Aims, lead singer Levi Stubbs, and groupmates Abdul “Duke” Fakir, Renaldo “Obie” Benson and Lawrence Payton remained together for over four decades, having gone from 1953 until 1997 without a change in personnel. The group was the main male vocal group for the highly successful songwriting and production team of Holland–Dozier–Holland, who crafted a stream of hit singles on Motown. These included two Billboard Hot 100 number-one hits for the Tops: “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)” in 1965 and “Reach Out I’ll Be There” in 1966. The Four Tops continued to have chart singles into the late 1970’s, including the million-seller, “Ain’t No Woman”. (More from Wikipedia)
Mikki was born Mikki Farrow in Detroit. She met and married a legendary saxophone player named Andrew “Mike” Terry in the mid-1960’s. In his Allmusic entry, Jason Ankeny writes: “The baritone saxophone of Andrew ‘Mike’ Terry remains an indelible component of the famed Motown sound. . . . Terry’s résumé reads like a roll call of soul’s greatest hits – his Motown track record alone spans chart smashes including the Four Tops’ ‘I Can’t Help Myself’, the Isley Brothers’ ‘This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak for You)’, Kim Weston’s ‘Take Me in Your Arms (Rock Me a Little While)’, and Marvin Gaye’s ‘Baby Don’t You Do It’; and as a freelancer, he played on monsters like Jackie Wilson’s ‘Higher and Higher’, the Fascinations’ ‘Girls Are out to Get You’, and the Capitols’ ‘Cool Jerk’.”
(July 2014)
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Holland-Dozier-Holland is a songwriting powerhouse; besides writing some of Motown’s best-known hits, they wrote most of the songs on entire albums for some of the biggest stars on the label. For the Four Tops, Four Tops Second Album (1965) included two of the group’s best known hit songs, “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)” and “It’s The Same Old Song” that were both penned by Holland-Dozier-Holland; in all, they wrote 10 of the 12 songs on the album.
(April 2015/1)
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The relocation to Italy completely turned the fortunes of the Primitives around. Their appearances at the Piper Club turned them into stars, and they had huge record sales with their inventive Italian versions of English-language pop hits. Their first release in Italy was the major hit “Yeeeeeeh!” b/w “L’Ombra di Nessuno” (“The Shadow of None”), that is, the Rascals’ hit “I Ain’t Gonna Eat out My Heart Anymore” and the Four Tops song “Standing in the Shadow of Love”. “Yeeeeeeh!” is in the song listing on English Freakbeat, Volume 1 but is not actually on the CD.
(May 2015)
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