I'm with you on this point. I would have thought that the Four Tops' Second Album and Reach Out are at least as worthy of expanded releases as the Supremes' albums. I say this as being really pleased with the Supremes' albums.
It sounds like a great idea and I want to say that maybe Universal weighed the possibility at one point. When I consider what we've gotten in terms of unissued material and what's been languishing,it wouldn't be a worthy investment. "Expanded" has a different meaning to different record companies. We're talking Universal here,so when you hear them talk about an "Expanded Edition" you can pretty much expect a full disc worth of unreleased songs. The Tops weren't prolific in the studio quite like The Marvelettes or even The Supremes.
When The Tops went into the studio to record an album they would usually record close to twenty tracks. It depended on how many producers had the time to cut something for the album. By The Supremes being a much bigger act and everyone breaking their necks to do something with them,QC might have forty or more tracks. Berry Gordy recorded them constantly between Detroit & L.A.,even to the tune of having to cancel certain projects. So when preliminary research starts for a reissue they start finding truckloads of unheard material on The Supremes whereas they might find another five to ten songs on The Tops. It works for an Ace/Kent, but it's not much of a project for Harry Weinger and won't keep him busy very long. So I can see why The Tops have never got the deluxe treatment. Just my viewpoint.
No reason why haven't got expanded editions of the tops. For some reason the the Supremes get all the attention. They did way too many standards and not as well.
I also agree with you on this: the move to ABC Records give the Four Tops give the group major hits in the early to mid '70s with "Keeper Of The Castle", "Ain't No Woman [[Like The One I've Got)", "Midnight Flower", and others. And I read somewhere that the Motown brass didn't do anything to keep the group when their contract was up [["you guys are finished anyway" is what I've heard-maybe not from Gordy himself but from someone else at the company).
There are a few reasons for this:
1.) The Supremes have more devoted fan base. That's not to say that there aren't Four Tops fans out there, but the Supremes were a bigger group with a household name star who is still touring and still having hits on the Billboard charts today. While people may know of Levi Stubbs, he's not going to have the same draw as Diana Ross. If Diana Ross is still out there in the public eye, a record label is more inclined to release material from that artist's catalog. The Four Tops don't have that same draw.
2.) The Four Tops' Lost & Found collection wasn't a big seller. A collection like that is catered to a very specialized audience: die-hard Four Tops and Motown fans. So your market isn't going to be expansive. Granted the collection was unreleased material and didn't contain hits on it, but when a record company looks at album/artists and see the sales aren't there then that will prevent them from wanting to do more releases on that artist. It doesn't mean that they won't do some releases, but it certainly doesn't help the cause.
3.) Universal has dropped the ball on all Motown releases. How many Motown catalog releases have we seen directly from Universal in the past 2 years? This doesn't include the releases from third-party labels. Universal just isn't producing and releasing the Motown catalog. We had to wait over a year between Supremes releases. Is it due to lack of demand? No. Lack of promotion on their end? Absolutely. I honestly believe if they actually invested in the promotion of these releases then it would boost sales, but when all you see is a little blurb on Facebook, how do they expect this stuff to sell? You see how hard and long it is taking to complete the Supremes catalog. Motown 60 is next year. I'm not expecting too much as Motown 50 was such a dud.
Andy and George have expressed that they would love to do expanded editions on the Four Tops, Vandellas, etc. but they want to finish the Supremes/Diana Ross catalog first. I would love to see expanded editions on the other Motown groups and I'm hopeful one day we will, but there's only a handful of people working on the catalog [[Harry, Andy, George, Keith, Kevin). There's only so much they can do especially within a major record corporation such as Universal.
I, too, love "The Key", Waiting..... In fact, speaking of cover versions [[which I sometimes find dull before even hearing them, i.e., "Little Green Apples"), the Four Tops "Now" contains the full-length version of the most beautiful rendition of "MacArthur Park" I've ever heard. It's a classic example of Motown taking another record company's song and making it all their own -- spectacularly!
Yes LookingForAChance and Gary I LOVE "The Key"! Such a great Four Tops tune. I also love their version of "Don't Take Your Love From Me" from the same album.
And Gary, "Little Green Apples" is a fantastic song, so don't let me hear you putting that one down again, OK? :p
The NOW album has the amazing MY PAST JUST CROSSED MY FUTURE. That is one funky groove. Should've made another album with the unreleased material like SAME O SAME O, NO TIME, MY LOVE KEEPS ON GROWING etc
Fourtopsbiggestfan, you're so right! "My Past Just Crossed My Future" is powerful! Not much melody -- just the same chord or two throughout the entire song, yet it grabs you. Levi does a great job on lead vocals, as always. And those string passages are HOT! Been loving it since the first time I heard it.
Yes, I agree on both counts. The Four Tops "Now" is long overdue for a fresh remastering. I'm just glad I bought the CD when it first came out. It seems to be out of print, and, as usual, the price gougers are out in full force. A third-party dealer on Amazon wants $99.95 for a copy. And, not to be out-done, an eBay dealer is asking $129.95 for it. Those may or may not be new sealed copies. [[It made me too nauseous to check!) Talk about greed!!!
There can be much speculation on this, but I think the Tops started burning out with HDH before the Supremes did. Notice after Bernadette, there were no other Top Ten hits for HDH and HDH was still at Motown for the rest of 1967, or most of it. This is according to Billboard Magazine but I have to say 7 Rooms and Walk Away Renee did go Top Ten on numerous other charts.
Again the Tops were cooling off before HDH left. I just wish they had been teamed with Frank Wilson a couple years earlier, his work on them is incredible
Interesting. “I’m In A Different World” is my favorite Tops song ever. Not only were the Tops songs by HDH not hot on the charts I think Motown promotion for the Tops had slowed down. It seems like Motown was basically focused on the Supremes and The Temptations as far as groups. And the Tops werent too thrilled about going to LA either. It is interesting thinking about what would have happened.
I feel sure that had HDH stayed at Motown, after Forever Came Today failed Gordy would have changed producers anyway.
Or, BayouMotownMan, it's possible that Motown purposely didn't promote The Supremes "Forever Came Today" and the Four Tops "I'm In A Different World". After all, by the time those recordings were released, H-D-H were long-gone. After defecting, why would Motown reward them with two additional hit records? Unfortunately, if that's the case, The Supremes and Four Tops were the ones who got punished for H-D-H jumping ship.
As an extra side note, I remember reading years ago that HDH were pissed that Motown had released "Forever Came Today" as they claimed it was an "unfinished" recording. [[I'm not sure whether that figures into the formula or not, but it's a piece of the puzzle, regardless.)
For years, I really thought the Four Tops were in the Motown Elite Artists club. Still, Motown was really thrown for a loop as to what to do after the Golden Trio of hits [["Reach Out", "Standing", "Bernadette") had run their course. It does seem Motown cooled on the group, though there were an awful lot of changes going on at Motown with nearly all the groups facing personnel changes and the old family feeling evaporating. The Temptations were getting hotter with each new release, so I can see how the attention would swing dramatically in their direction. Of course the Supremes were the fulcrum of the company's phenomenal success, so obviously the bulk of your efforts would go to keep their momentum going. It was just unfortunate that nobody could come up with a new direction for the Four Tops that grabbed the public's attention- at least, not until the Frank Wilson years of triumph.
"I'm In A Different World" is a good record, but I always felt there was something lacking in the mix; it just didn't have a HOT sound like some of the other Motown records. What's funny is that the first time I heard that song, it was on an 8-track [[yes, I had one of those!) I thought the song sounded muted or very subdued and chalked it up to the 8-track just being old. Then I got my hands on the album and record, and it sounded very much the same. Until maybe '68, Motown would mix their singles, often using what I believe was a lot of compression to make those songs sound "hot" and as loud as possible. "I'm In A Different World" didn't really have that sort of sound to me. However, as an experiment, I made a dub of the song, running it through a compressor and it revealed a lot more in the mix than I had heard before. It actually made me look at the song in a different way and enjoy it more than I ever had.
Not to say this was the whole issue with the Tops' issues on the charts, but then again, Motown would sometimes do things like that, withdraw a single and replace it with a different mix if they thought it would make it jump out of your speakers a little more.
What's sad too is that I've been listening to disc two of the Lost And Found set a lot more carefully than I had before and I'm finding there are plenty of songs that may have helped spark the Top's career post-H-D-H. "Clip My Wings", "I Can't Hold Back", "These Are The Questions" and especially "Which Way Is The Sky" are incredibly good and gave the Four Tops a completely fresh, new sound. Was QC afraid that these were too radical, or were they just out to lunch?
BINGO! I admit, I never gave "Four Tops Now!" or "MacArthur Park" a full chance until just a week ago. I played it and played it and played it all the way through while I was going to and from work and even while I was at work [[I drive a work van, so I get to play all my favorite music while traveling!) It was great because I found out that album is one of the more "playable" LPs of Motown's late 60's era.
What I really like about this album is that is almost sounds as if it's arranged in these mini-suites or set pieces; You've got a nice set of Motown Sound originals: "The Key", "What Is A Man", "My Past...", "Don't Let Him Take..." then you have a tasteful section of covers with 2 being wonderful Jimmy Webb compositions.
What makes the covers enjoyable is that they were well-produced without a lot of ornate orchestration and overblown pathos. I agree with you too, the Tops' rendition of "MacArthur Park" is very beautiful. I think I just had to mature a few years to fully appreciate it. Definitely as you say, Motown [[and the Tops) taking outside material and making it their own.
After the covers/Jimmy Webb suite, we get a few more Motown Sound originals and then we close out on a surprising bit of Beatles arranged as jazz with "Fool On The Hill". To me, this album is much like the Reach Out album in that everything worked together so well, the covers mesh seamlessly with the Motown originals.
Too many cover. Too many pop covers. They had plenty of original material but Motown as usual screws things up. Should've covered actual soul material like TYRONE DAVIS , FONTELLA BASS, PERCY SLEDGE and other STAX songs. Motown was white washing themselves.
"Soul Spin" had at least two tracks as potential singles in "Nothing" and "Barbara's Boy". Tony Blackburn couldn't get the BBC to support "Barbara's Boy" as a single, possibly because of its controversial lyric.
I think Don't Let Him Take Your Love From Me is a lost hit. if fun, loud, a bit more funky than earlier ones. the Temps struck gold with the psychedelic soul so the route wasn't really open to the Tops. so i think they could have done something more r&b and soul powered. Levi's voice is exceptional and can really blast. maybe something more like what the Isley Bros got into might have worked.
and then of course i love their early 70s stuff with frank wilson.
It's always puzzled me that "Don't Let Him Take Your Love From Me" wasn't a much bigger hit. I immediately thought it was one of the group's best songs. Like you said, it's fun, loud and so much funkier than anything they had cut before. Really, it was a new direction for them overall because you got to really hear the Tops' backing vocals without the Andantes being mixed in. That too puzzled me that here you've got a group that can do these fantastic jazz harmonies and yet they're always recorded singing unison lines. Here on "Don't", you really got to hear a bit of what the Tops were capable of. I wish this song had hit bigger, it's really a fantastic tune.
I really wish Motown gave Raynard Miner a chance when he was with the label. The material he wrote for the Tops was top notch and had potential to be hits. Someone mentioned "Clip My Wings" and I love that song. It's a great song, but to me it sounds incomplete. It definitely needed brass and strings to give it that sweetened, soaring edge to send it flying. It'd be fun to hear someone add some strings to the track. Another Raynard Miner/Four Tops track "You Can't Keep A Good Man Down" was another missed opportunity. How could Motown let that sit in the vaults? It's one of my all-time favorite Four Tops songs. It's stellar and proof Raynard Miner was a great fit for the Tops. In fact, a few years ago I met Mr. Miner and told him how much I loved that song. He seemed so happy to hear someone appreciated his work at Motown despite so much of his material being canned.
To Sup_Fan, WaitingWatching, and Tommy Tomato: Contrary to popular belief, I never particularly cared for "Don't Let Him Take Your Love From Me". It just didn't sound like Motown to me. Back in the day, I bought each and every Motown album as they were released. It seems like nearly every artist signed to the label released a version of "DLHTYLFM. By the time I heard versions by [[off the top of my head) the Four Tops, Jimmy Ruffin, The Temptations, Gladys Knight & The Pips, and the Undisputed Truth, I was growing mighty weary of that song. But if you all like it, more power to you. I would have much preferred Motown releasing "The Key" or "My Past Just Crossed My Future" as a single.
If you like the funkier side of Levi & The Four Tops, my vote goes to Frank Wilson's production of "I Can't Quit Your Love". That record is hot -- and similar to his production of Eddie Kendricks' "Girl You Need A Change Of Mind". Both records were danceable, yet, surprisingly, I rarely hear anyone praising "I Can't Quit Your Love". Anyone have any idea why?
Gary I also love "I Can't Quite Your Love", it's funky and the production is so full of energy, typical Frank Wilson excellence! I've said it before but the whole Nature Planned It LP is similarly fantastic. ;)
Now as for "Don't Let Him Take Your Love For Me", I really love that song, in any of its versions really. I heard the Jimmy Ruffin and Tempts renditions first so they're the ones I am familiar with and love most, it but I really enjoy the uptempo Tops version as well. It does deserve to have been a bigger hit for me too.
And Gary I also agree that "The Key" would have made a great single... "My Past Just Crossed My Future" is good but a bit of a strange song [[cough damn sitar cough)... perhaps not smash hit material :)
Here's what we said about "My Past Just Crossed My Future" last time it was discussed ;)
https://soulfuldetroit.com/showthrea...e-Any-thoughts
Tom, I just listened to "My Past Just Crossed My Future" and "The Key" on YouTube -- just to refresh my memory. Funny, but as much as I've always liked "MPJCMF", I don't remember that sitar [[or whatever it is). There's a lot of pent-up energy going on in that song. I guess I've always concentrated on those incredible string passages and back-up vocals. I would love to hear a mix with the back-up vocals louder and with The Andantes added. Overall, as much as I like it, I think I've gotta agree with you that it was better left as an album track. "The Key", however, is quite another story. That record, with its uplifting horns and strings, is pure Motown. Should have been released as a hit single.
Ha, the sitar is about the only thing I remember being in "My Past Just Crossed My Future" Gary! I'll give it a listen now and refresh my memory. :)
I listened to "MPJCMF" and "The Key", again, both great! I didn't appreciate the drum, strings and bass in "My Past" enough! Great stuff. And "The Key" is a wonderful Motown groove!! :)
Yeah, there's a lot happening within that musical arrangement. I think you're right, though, Tom. "The Key" would have been the better choice for single release. It's light and bright, and it has a better, more radio-friendly melody. From the first note of the bass, strings, and tambourine intro, it's instantly recognizable as pure Motown. Love it!
Whew! I love colorful words and phrases and you really hit it by saying "There's a lot of pent-up energy going on..." That's what I was looking for. I love that song to pieces, and always thought there was something I couldn't quite peg about it-until I read your words. This is one of those songs, I could listen to a million times in a row and still never quite wrap my head around all the stuff going on in that song.
It was a few years before I even focused on the lyrics! The drums nearly steal the whole show. Why did Motown mix backing vocals so low on nearly everyone's music? Here we get to hear the Tops un-adorned harmonies and they're nearly buried in the mix. Actually, I stumbled onto a little trick where I can play a CD, tape or album through a pedal effects compressor and darn if it doesn't help to bring up backing vocals and other things in the mix just a bit louder and clearer. Doing that, I'm really appreciating how good the Tops [[and Andantes, when they were used) really were.
Hey! You met Mr. Miner? Fantastic! His work really could have been another success story as far as turning Motown on to a new direction in music. I'm not sure how to describe his work, but to me, just like Deke Richard's work, it somehow retained the fundamentals of The Motown Sound while giving it a kick upwards and making it sound new at the same time.
Why most of his works was canned is something I'll never understand. Was it deemed not commercial enough? Or was it down to QC being staffed by people who were more suited to running a bank or business than a creative entity? I've always had the feeling that some of the best music ever recorded at Motown was never released. The more of these vaulted sessions that we get to hear the more I'm convince of it.
I enjoy nearly all of Motown's albums up til '67. For some reason though, once I get to the albums from '68 on, it seems a lot of weak material larded many of those LPs. The "Lost And Found" set is stocked with so much good material, there is just no reason why Motown couldn't have built much stronger, enjoyable LPs. I think there may have been a mindset of playing it very safe by stocking an album with either covers that were very popular, or material that everyone thought was cutting edge, but was just downright awful.
I'm thinking specifically of albums like "Soul Spin" that starts out strong and ends up not living up to its full potential-or it's title, "Yesterday's Dreams", which was good, but could have replaced a couple of the covers with Motown originals recorded during its timeline, the Supremes' "Reflections", with it's weak L.A.-recorded selections, and, well, that's enough for now.
"The Key" was released on 45.
Think it was only ever a B-Side snakepit.
Just checking now it was the flip to "Don't Let Him Take Your Love From Me" released in late '69.
Well, by George, you're right, snakepit. "The Key" was indeed the B-side of "Don't Let HimTake Your Love From Me". At the time, I had bought the Four Tops "Now" LP, and didn't pay any attention to the single. I don't recall "DLHTYLFM" getting any local radio airplay. Too bad they didn't flip the record over and play "The Key" -- unless the promo copy contained the A-side tune on both sides of the 45.
Tom,
I know ..I had it.
I wasn't too keen on "DLHTYLFM" , whereas " The Key" was a brilliant, fresh track, IMHO.
BTW Tom are you not interested in the box set of 66 Motown tracks at £7.99?