Levi Stubbs passed away Friday at the age of 72.  His group The Four Tops are often left behind in the discussion of the great Motown artists.  Perhaps this is partly due to the fact that there was no focal point to the group, no breakout star marketed at the expense of the dynamic whole.  Label founder Berry Gordy was grooming Diana Ross for a solo career almost as soon as their career finally took off in 1964 after several commercial flops.  Eddie Kendricks broke off from the Temptations and had a couple of number ones on his own.  Certainly The Miracles could not contain all the poetic genius of Smokey Robinson.  But it was never Levi Stubbs and The Four Tops.  Just Four Tops.  And from 1953 until the 1997 death of Lawrence Payton, the group’s makeup never changed.

As a lead singer, Stubbs may not have had the suave sophistication of a Marvin Gaye nor the precocious all around talent of Stevie Wonder.  But he had power to spare.  Witness the devastating sadness testified to in “Bernadette” or “7 Rooms Of Gloom”.

Their chart fortunes flagged by 1968 as the writing and production team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland left the label in a dispute over royalties and control, a not uncommon theme for the artists working on Gordy’s assembly line (this was Detroit after all).  Holland/Dozier/Holland provided the group with their best known tunes.  But after the label moved its headquarters to L.A. in 1972 and the group decided to sign with ABC-Dunhill, they enjoyed a renaissance.  Stubbs probably never had a smoother lead vocal than on “Ain’t No Woman (Like The One I’ve Got)”.

I’ve been grooving along with Stubbs’ music this weekend in remembrance.  You won’t regret it if you do the same.