Cultureshark Remembers Levi Stubbs

Boy, this one hurts: Levi Stubbs, lead singer of the Four Tops, passed away at 72, and though he is gone now after being in failing health for a few years, there is no doubt that his music is immortal.

The Four Tops is the group that got me into the wonderful world of Motown Records. Specifically, the song "Reach Out (I'll Be There)", though probably not the first Motown tune I ever heard, was the one that made me notice. It introduced me not just to artists like the Tops, Temps, Smokey, etc; but to soul music itself and to the concept of sad songs making you feel good.

No record combines despair and hope like "Reach Out," and it's all there in Stubbs' vocals. OK, maybe I'M reaching here, and the lyrics certainly tell the story, but if it is at all possible to distill into a man's voice the concept of reaching into the abyss and extending an arm to pull up a woman from the darkness at the very last minute, it's there in the way he sings "Reach Out." In fact, he does it in one word when, just before the whole group comes in with the "Reach Out" chorus, he pleads, "Darling..."

Just the longing in his delivery of that single word gives you the essence of what that number and what the Four Tops are about--an urgency, a desperation to love and to be loved. If I needed to describe Levi Stubbs' vocals in one word, it would be "yearning."

It's a cliche to say you get chills while hearing a piece of music, but I do each time I listen to "Ask the Lonely." The end of the song tears my heart out.

Group: Just ask the lonely

Levi: Just ask the lonely


Then, alone, he takes it to another level:


Ask ME
I'm the loneliest one you'll see

His searing voice chokes me up, all right, but, man, it's one of those "feels so good to feel so sad" moments that great music can provide.

Stubbs was perhaps best at the end of songs, when his yearning grew even more palpable as he belted out improvised-sounding lines while the music climaxed around him. But he often brought that same effect throughout the whole recording. Take "Bernadette," in which the singer apparently has the girl already and is expressing his gratitude and pride. But he's also warning her about other men, with less honorable intentions, who want to control her, not just love her and appreciate her. You can't hear Stubbs go...

I'll tell the world

You belong to me

I'll tell the world

You're the soul of me

I'll tell the world

You're a part of me

without thinking, whoa, this guy may not be so secure and content after all. Stubbs reminds us that passion can make a man desperate not just to get love, but to keep it. Even more moving is the way he gets down on his hands and knees at the end:

So whatever you do, Bernadette,

Keep on loving me

Bernadette

Keep on needing me

Bernadette

But it wasn't all "doom and gloom" (though "A Cellarful of Motown" provides a great lesser-known treat with "7 Rooms of Gloom") with the Tops. There's "Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch," of course, but right now, go back to "Reach Out" and enjoy the way they sing those two words, then marvel at Stubbs begging, "Reach out for ME." Then, with a simple but forceful, "HAH," he turns the whole song around. The guys come in and promise, "I'll be there," and from the darkness comes assurance that everything's gonna be OK. The song itself is suddenly optimistic, cheerful, even exhilarating.

What a fantastic range of emotion in just one 3-minute single. It's no wonder that it's arguably the group's most celebrated work. I don't mean to slight the essential contributions of the other singers, nor of the amazing studio musicians and songwriters who crafted this incredible music, but I wouldn't feel the same impact without the singing of the incomparable Levi Stubbs. He'll always be one of my absolute favorites of all time.