George HaffendenThis year we’re trying something new: each week we’re going to be revisiting an album in full. They might be classics, rarities or simply albums we’ve forgotten about.
To start things off, we’re revisiting an excellent live album from the Motown legends the Four Tops.
A short history
It’s no secret that the Four Tops are among one of my favourite groups. And while I’ve been fortunate enough to see the most recent line-ups of the group live several times, I never got to see the original line-up in concert.
Thankfully, there’s plenty of YouTube videos of the classic Four Tops line-up – Abdul “Duke” Fakir, Renaldo “Obie” Benson, Lawrence Payton and lead Levi Stubbs – online, but there’s also the Four Tops Live and in Concert album from 1974.
By 1974 the group had left Motown. Well, technically, Motown left the Four Tops behind when the company headed west for the warmth of Los Angeles. While Motown left Detroit, the Four Tops decided to stay in the city, and would sign a deal with ABC/Dunhill instead.
Of course, at Motown the Four Tops had their biggest hits. Most of them were written and produced by Holland-Dozier-Holland, but when the trio fell out with Motown head honcho Berry Gordy, they left to set up their own label. With H-D-H gone, Motown had to find someone else to work with the Four Tops.
But, unlike The Supremes, who were also the beneficiaries of H-D-H’s talent, the Four Tops seemed to slip by the wayside with their departure from Motown, while groups like The Supremes and The Temptations carried on having stellar success.
That’s not to say the group didn’t record some brilliant music, the Still Waters Run Deep album is a must listen, but the hits became less frequent.
But their move to ABC/Dunhill did, for a while, give them some decent hits. Teamed up with producers Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter, the group scored hits such as ‘Keeper of the Castle’, ‘Ain’t No Woman (Like The One I’ve Got)’ and ‘Are You Man Enough?’.
The Four Tops were back on a creative run.
Live And In Concert
In 1974 the group released Live And In Concert, although it’s not clear from the album notes where the album was in fact recorded (or if it was culled from various Four Tops performances).
What is clear however is how good the album sounds. The Tops sound superb, Levi Stubbs’s powerful lead vocals are backed by the sweet harmony of the backing vocals provided by Duke, Lawrence and Obie.
As if that wasn’t enough, their band are equally great. Eighteen band members are listed on the album credits, 10 of them in the horn section alone. As a result the brassy arrangements sound great, anchored by a crack rhythm section featuring none other than Wilton Felder, co-founder of The Crusaders, on bass.
The setlist itself is a mix of the Four Tops’ classic Motown hits, but with an equal measure of their more recent recordings.
From the Motown days we get full versions of ‘Baby I Need Your Loving’ and ‘I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)’. We’re also given a medley of ‘Reach Out, I’ll Be There’ and ‘Standing in the Shadows of Love’, bookended by ‘Love Music’, a minor hit from the ABC/Dunhill era.
There’s also room for a minor Motown hit, ‘I Am Your Man’, the jokes during which probably worked better if you were actually in the audience.
The rest of the album is made up of their post-Motown material. ‘Ain’t No Woman (Like The One I’ve Got)’ is one of the highlights, as is ‘Are You Man Enough’. While perhaps not as good as their Motown songs, the Tops sound great, their harmonies strong as ever.
What is interesting is that the arrangements on the album are similar to those used by the current incarnation of the Four Tops today: ‘Reach Out’ and ‘Standing in the Shadows of Love’ are still performed in a medley, and the brassy backing still continues, as the group tour with a massive horn section (as do The Temptations, whom they frequently tour together with).
As far as live albums go, the Four Tops’s Live And In Concert is pretty good. The producers appear to have resisted the temptation to add in more audience reaction, or overdub instruments and vocals in the studio, which often plagues other live albums. As a result, Live And In Concert sounds much more realistic.
It also helps that they’re backed by a massive, brassy band and that vocally, the Tops are on top of their game. If anything, by the seventies, the Four Tops sounded even better than in their Motown heyday.
Live And In Concert wasn’t their first live album, they also released Four Tops Live! while at Motown, recorded at Detroit’s Roostertail nightclub and released in 1966. That album doesn’t sound as smooth or as polished as Live And In Concert, reflecting perhaps the changes in sixties and seventies soul.
(There’s also been several “unofficial” releases of the group live. One from the nineties at the MGM in Las Vegas, just before the line-up would change due to illness and death. There’s also several issues from 2006, in which the “new” Tops, Theo Peoples, Ronnie McNeir, Lawrence Payton Jr and Duke Fakir, play another Vegas show. The new line-up sound decent, but whoever edited and mixed the tracks need shooting. Both these concerts can be found on YouTube.)
Both albums are well worth listening too, but for me, Live And In Concert is better. It’s a testament to the group that they continued (and continue today, in their new line-up) to play shows with similar setlists and arrangements some 40-odd years later, to packed out venues. Why change a winning formula?
And if you’re itching to see what they sound like today, well the latest line-up of the group, still featuring original member Duke Fakir, are set to tour the UK this autumn with The Temptations. COVID permitting, of course.