Four Tops Now!
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Four Tops Now!
''Four Tops Now!'' is the seventh studio album by American soul music vocal group Four Tops, released by Motown. Reception Editors at AllMusic Guide scored this album three out of five stars, with critic Ron Wynn characterizing it as not "among their biggest hit albums, but was a well-produced, nicely sung set anyhow". The 1992 edition of ''The'' Rolling Stone ''Album Guide'' rated this release three out of five stars. Track listing #"The Key" (Raynard Miner) – 2:39 #"What Is a Man" (Johnny Bristol and Doris McNeil) – 2:39 #"My Past Just Crossed My Future" (Janie Bradford and Miner) – 3:03 #"Don't Let Him Take Your Love from Me" (Barrett Strong and Norman Whitfield) – 2:54 #"Eleanor Rigby" (John Lennon and Paul McCartney) – 3:07 #"Little Green Apples" (Bobby Russell) – 3:56 #"Do What You Gotta Do" (Jimmy Webb) – 4:10 #" Mac Arthur Park" (Webb) – 6:35 #"Don't Bring Back Memories" ( Raymona Singleton) – 3:01 #"Wish I Di ...
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Four Tops
The Four Tops are an American vocal group formed in Detroit, Michigan in 1953 as the Four Aims. They were one of the most commercially successful American pop music groups of the 1960s and helped propel Motown Records to international fame. The group's repertoire has incorporated elements of Soul music, soul, R&B, disco, adult contemporary music, adult contemporary, doo-wop, jazz, and show tunes. Lead singer Levi Stubbs, along with backing vocalists Abdul "Duke" Fakir, Renaldo "Obie" Benson and Lawrence Payton remained together in the group for over four decades, performing until 1997 without a change in personnel. Along with fellow Motown groups the Miracles, the Marvelettes, Martha and the Vandellas, the Temptations, and the Supremes, the Four Tops helped to establish the "Motown sound"; pop-friendly soul and R&B with a clean, polished production quality. They were notable for having Stubbs, a baritone, as their lead singer, whereas most other male and mixed vocal groups of the ...
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Jimmy Webb
Jimmy Layne Webb (born August 15, 1946) is an American songwriter, composer, and singer. He achieved success at an early age, winning the Grammy Award for Song of the Year at the age of 21. During his career, he established himself as one of America's most successful and honored songwriter/composers. Webb has written numerous platinum-selling songs, including " Up, Up and Away", " By the Time I Get to Phoenix", " MacArthur Park", " Wichita Lineman", " Worst That Could Happen", " Galveston", and " All I Know". He had successful collaborations with Glen Campbell, Michael Feinstein, Linda Ronstadt, the 5th Dimension, the Supremes, Art Garfunkel, Richard Harris, and Carly Simon. Webb was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1986 and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1990. He received the National Academy of Songwriters Lifetime Achievement Award in 1993, the Songwriters Hall of Fame Johnny Mercer Award in 2003, the ASCAP "Voice of Music" Award in 2006 and th ...
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Billboard 200
The ''Billboard'' 200 is a record chart ranking the 200 most popular music albums and EPs in the United States. It is published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists. Sometimes, a recording act is remembered for its " number ones" that outperformed all other albums during at least one week. The chart grew from a weekly top 10 list in 1956 to become a top 200 list in May 1967, acquiring its existing name in March 1992. Its previous names include the ''Billboard'' Top LPs (1961–1972), ''Billboard'' Top LPs & Tape (1972–1984), ''Billboard'' Top 200 Albums (1984–1985), ''Billboard'' Top Pop Albums (1985–1991), and ''Billboard'' 200 Top Albums (1991–1992). The chart is based mostly on sales—both at retail and digital – of albums in the United States. The weekly sales period was Monday to Sunday when Nielsen started tracking sales in 1991, but since July 2015, the tracking week begins on Friday (to coincide ...
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Liner Notes
Liner notes (also sleeve notes or album notes) are the writings found on the sleeves of LP record albums and in booklets that come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or cassette j-cards. Origin Liner notes are descended from the program notes for musical concerts, and developed into notes that were printed on the outer album jacket or the inner sleeve used to protect a traditional 12-inch vinyl record, i.e., long playing or gramophone record album. The term descends from the name "record liner" or "album liner". Album liner notes survived format changes from vinyl LP to cassette to CD. These notes can be sources of information about the contents of the recording as well as broader cultural topics. Contents Common material Such notes often contained a mix of factual and anecdotal material, and occasionally a discography for the artist or the issuing record label. Liner notes were also an occasion for thoughtful signed essays on the artist by another party, often a ...
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Levi Stubbs
Levi Stubbs (born Levi Stubbles, June 6, 1936 – October 17, 2008) was an American baritone singer, widely known as the lead vocalist of the R&B group the Four Tops, that released a variety of Motown hit records during the 1960s and 1970s. He was noted for his powerful, emotional, and dramatic singing style. In 1990, Stubbs was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Four Tops. Stubbs was also a voice artist in film and television, and provided the voice of "Audrey II", the alien plant in the 1986 musical horror comedy film '' Little Shop of Horrors'' (an adaption of the stage musical of the same name), as well as Mother Brain in the 1989 TV series '' Captain N: The Game Master''. Stubbs was admired by his peers for his impressive vocal range, and influenced many later pop and soul artists, such as Daryl Hall of Hall and Oates. Stubbs was born and spent much of his life in Detroit, Michigan. He had five children with his wife Clineice Stubbs, to ...
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Lawrence Payton
Lawrence Albert Payton Sr. (March 2, 1938 – June 20, 1997) was an American tenor, songwriter, vocal arranger, musician, and record producer for the popular Motown quartet, the Four Tops. Career Payton and Obie Benson both attended a Northern High School in Detroit and met Levi Stubbs and Duke Fakir at a school birthday party. The four teenagers began singing in 1953 as The Four Aims but later changed their name to the Four Tops to avoid confusion with the Ames Brothers. With the help of Payton's songwriter cousin Billy Davis, the Aims signed to Chess Records in 1956. Although successful in the local area as a performance group, recording success eluded them until signing with the newly established Motown label in 1963. They then became one of the biggest recording acts of the 1960s, charting more than two dozen hits through the early 1980s. Payton is credited for the vocal arrangements and the "smooth seamless harmony" of the Four Tops' sound. He also sang lead on several ...
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Abdul Fakir
Abdul Kareem "Duke" Fakir (December 26, 1935 – July 22, 2024) was an American singer. He co-founded the Motown quartet the Four Tops and performed in an ensemble under that name from 1953 until shortly before his death. He was the group's last surviving original member. Biography Fakir was born on December 26, 1935, in Detroit, Michigan. His father was a factory worker who came from what is now Bangladesh. His mother was an African American from Sparta, Georgia. Fakir attended Detroit's Pershing High School, where he played basketball and football, and ran track. He first met fellow band member Levi Stubbs through neighborhood football games; at that time he was not aware Stubbs was a singer. Later, attending a variety show featuring the Lucky Millinder band, the band announced a talented young singer whom Fakir recognized as the boy he played football with. They became closer friends and Stubbs even traveled with Fakir to his sporting events, where they enjoyed singing and e ...
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Renaldo Benson
Renaldo "Obie" Benson (June 14, 1936 – July 1, 2005) was an American soul and R&B singer and songwriter. He was best known as a founding member and the bass singer of Motown group the Four Tops, which he joined in 1953 and continued to perform with for over five decades, until April 8, 2005. He also co-wrote " What's Going On" which became a No. 2 hit for Marvin Gaye in 1971, and which Rolling Stone rated as No. 4 on their List of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time released in 2004. Early life and education Renaldo Benson was born in Detroit, Michigan on June 14, 1936. Benson attended Northern High School in Detroit, Michigan with Lawrence Payton. The Four Tops Formation: 1953–1964 The pair met Levi Stubbs and Abdul "Duke" Fakir while singing at a friend's birthday party in 1954 and decided to form a group called the Four Aims. Roquel Billy Davis, who was Payton's cousin, was a fifth member of the group for a time and a songwriter for the group. Davis ...
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Lennon–McCartney
Lennon–McCartney is the songwriting partnership between the English musicians John Lennon (1940–1980) and Paul McCartney (born 1942) of the Beatles. It is widely considered one of the greatest, best known and most successful musical collaborations ever by records sold, with the Beatles selling over 600 million records worldwide . Between 5 October 1962 and 8 May 1970, the partnership published approximately 180 jointly credited songs, of which the vast majority were recorded by the Beatles, forming the bulk of their catalogue. Unlike many songwriting partnerships that comprise a separate lyricist and composer, such as George and Ira Gershwin, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, John Kander and Fred Ebb, or Elton John and Bernie Taupin, both Lennon and McCartney wrote lyrics and music. Sometimes, especially early on, they would collaborate extensively when writing songs, working "eyeball to eyeball" as Lennon phrased it. During the latter half of their partners ...
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The Fool On The Hill
"The Fool on the Hill" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1967 EP and album '' Magical Mystery Tour''. It was written and sung by Paul McCartney and credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership. The lyrics describe a solitary figure, the one named in the title, who is not understood by others, but is actually wise. McCartney said the idea for the song was inspired by the Dutch design collective the Fool, who derived their name from the tarot card of the same name, and possibly by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The song's segment in the '' Magical Mystery Tour'' television film was shot separately from the rest of the film and without the other Beatles' knowledge. Accompanied by a professional cameraman, McCartney filmed the scene near Nice in France. In 1968, Sérgio Mendes & Brasil '66 recorded a cover version of the song that reached the top ten in the US. By the late 1970s, "The Fool on the Hill" was one of McCartney's most widely recorded ballads. A sol ...
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Al Cleveland
Al Cleveland (born Alfred W. Cleveland; March 11, 1930 – August 14, 1996) was an American songwriter for the Motown label. Among his most popular co-compositions are 1967's " I Second That Emotion" and 1969's " Baby, Baby Don't Cry" performed by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles and 1971's " What's Going On" performed by Marvin Gaye. Cleveland was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, to Alfred W. and Dorothy Cleveland. Al has two sisters, Edna Grate and Mamie Jett, as well as one brother, Robert Cleveland. His sons Alfred D Cleveland and Theodore Mills survive him. He had a long and distinguished writing career, initially for New York artists on the Scepter/Wand labels such as Dionne Warwick and Tommy Hunt, as well as Gene Pitney before moving to Motown, where he provided songs for Smokey & The Miracles, The Marvelettes, David Ruffin, the Four Tops and Chuck Jackson Charles Benjamin Jackson (July 22, 1937 – February 16, 2023) was an American R&B singer who was ...
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William Weatherspoon
William Henry Weatherspoon (February 11, 1936 – July 17, 2005) was an American songwriter and record producer, best known for his work for Motown Records in the 1960s. He co-wrote "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted", an international hit for Jimmy Ruffin, and many other hit songs. Biography He was born in Detroit, Detroit, Michigan; his younger brother was the actor John Witherspoon (actor), John Witherspoon. William Weatherspoon began singing in 1956 with a local vocal group, the Tornados, led by Charles Sutton, formerly of The Midnighters. The group split up in 1960, and, after a spell in the US military, Weatherspoon began working as a songwriter and producer for the Correc-Tone label in Detroit. After that label folded, he began working for Motown, and paired up with fellow songwriter James Dean (songwriter), James Dean to write a series of hits, mostly for junior or relatively minor artists on the company's roster.
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