What Happened With 4 Tops & Motown?

motown67motown67 4,513 Posts
edited April 2011 in Strut Central
Anyone know the story of how the 4 Tops ended up leaving Motown? It seemed like early on they were going hit for hit with the Temptations, and most of their tunes were written by Holland-Dozier-Holland. That writing team ended up leaving Motown, and the 4 Tops later switched to ABC-Dunhill. What happened there? Why didn't Motown try to keep one of their top hitmakers?

By the way those later Motown releases/early ABC-Dunhill records are not to be slept on. They were still putting out some quality Soul even if they weren't making the top of the charts as much.

  Comments


  • Not sure if it explains much, but if I remember correctly they departed the label around the same time Motown left Detroit.

    And I agree about the later records, I've been playing out both "Feel Free" and "I Can't Hold on Much Longer" for the last year or so, and they both sound really nice to me these days.

  • pickwick33pickwick33 8,946 Posts
    Why didn't Motown try to keep one of their top hitmakers? They were still putting out some quality Soul even if they weren't making the top of the charts as much.

    I think you may have answered your own question. They weren't hitting as hard as they were prior to HDH's leaving. And I'm sure if they had stayed, they might have wound up being semi-neglected like Junior Walker. So a change was in order.

    Gladys Knight & the Pips left Motown a year after the Four Tops did. I remember reading an interview where they felt that between Motown leaving Detroit and getting in the movie business, they weren't feeling like an indispensable priority anymore. So they split for Buddah. I wouldn't be surprised if this was the Four Tops' story.

  • batmonbatmon 27,574 Posts
    who stayed w/ motown?

    The Jacksons were gone by '75.

    Stevie is still there?

  • pickwick33pickwick33 8,946 Posts
    batmon said:
    who stayed w/ motown?

    The Jacksons were gone by '75.

    Stevie is still there?

    Stevie never left.

    Even Smokey bolted at one point.

  • SoulhawkSoulhawk 3,197 Posts
    batmon said:
    Stevie is still there?

    Smokey was a lifer

    by the early 70s Berry Gordy was too busy fucking Diana Ross & trying break her as an 'actress' to pay attention to any other artist in his stable

  • batmonbatmon 27,574 Posts
    Motown could get a "Ken Burns" treatment doc.

    I wanna know how white rock bands felt signing w/ Rare Earth Records and who was behind the sub.

  • batmonbatmon 27,574 Posts
    Soulhawk said:
    batmon said:
    Stevie is still there?

    Smokey was a lifer

    by the early 70s Berry Gordy was too busy fucking Diana Ross & trying break her as an 'actress' to pay attention to any other artist in his stable

    Ive always wondered if Ross had gotten the Oscar for Lady Sings the Blues, if Gordy/Motown/LA would have went down differently. Would it had really gotten out of control or would the stable/Ross & Gorday be able to harness the new found success.

  • SoulhawkSoulhawk 3,197 Posts
    by that point most of his best artists had already bailed

    Gordy was right up there in figuring out new ways to screw artists out their dough too

  • SoulhawkSoulhawk 3,197 Posts
    re the rock bands on Rare Earth - the local bands like Rare Earth( formerly the Sunliners), Stoney & Meatloaf etc had already worked with Motown artists in some capacity, so signing with a Motown sublabel seemed like a no brainer - alot of the other artists on Rare Earth seemed like overseas license jobs? the Pretty Things etc

  • batmonbatmon 27,574 Posts
    So there was no actual scouting/hunting of Detroit Rock bands to see who would fill out the label roster?

  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    Martha Reeves says she was taking some time off to have a baby and didn't know that Motown had moved to LA until she tried to go back to work.

    New Decade, new town, new medias, new musical styles, artist demanding control, artist demanding accounting.
    Barry thought he could enjoy the high life and build a new empire and he did.
    So old acts were of less interest to him, and they wanted to see if another label would treat them better.
    I don't know the inner workings of the 4 Tops leaving.

  • HorseleechHorseleech 3,830 Posts
    According to the Wiki page, they left at the time Motown moved west, as did several other older acts.

    And their 1972 single 'A Simple Game' had backing vocals by the Moody Blues :oof:

  • DanteDante 371 Posts
    Horseleech said:
    According to the Wiki page, they left at the time Motown moved west, as did several other older acts.

    And their 1972 single 'A Simple Game' had backing vocals by the Moody Blues :oof:

    It's actually quite good.

  • DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,913 Posts
    Horseleech said:
    According to the Wiki page, they left at the time Motown moved west, as did several other older acts.

    And their 1972 single 'A Simple Game' had backing vocals by the Moody Blues :oof:

    It's a Moody Blues song, isn't it? Mike Pinder wrote it. I think it was the b-side to one of their late 60s singles.



    The Tops recorded another Moody Blues song around the same time. This was a hit in the UK, but it seems it never got released in the US.


  • SoulhawkSoulhawk 3,197 Posts
    the Tops also did the Left Banke's 'Walk Away Renee'

    in the response to Batmon's earlier question, Motown had been signing local Detroit white garage rock acts since the early days - Nick & the Jaguars have a rare early single on Tamla - sort of a surf / rockabilly thing - in the mid 60s Motown signed the Underdogs to VIP, the Ones etc

  • batmonbatmon 27,574 Posts
    I wonder if motown hired "rock"engineers to record the rock stuff or let the guys who dealt w the soul production record the rock stuff.

  • SoulhawkSoulhawk 3,197 Posts
    I'm sure things had changed by the 70s, but in the early 60's it was ALL considered "Rock n Roll" - Motown recorded most of their shit in-house too( literally, Hitsville was in a house)

    look at the amount of Motown covers the Beatles did, tons

  • RAJRAJ tenacious local 7,779 Posts
    Soul Strut redemption thread alert!

  • pickwick33pickwick33 8,946 Posts
    Soulhawk said:
    batmon said:
    Stevie is still there?

    Smokey was a lifer


    Naw, I'd say Stevie was the lifer, because he's never had anything on any other label.

    But I do remember, at some point in the nineties, that Smokey hooked up with SKG Records or some similar major label. It was when he did that Double Good Everything album.

  • pickwick33pickwick33 8,946 Posts
    Soulhawk said:
    I'm sure things had changed by the 70s, but in the early 60's it was ALL considered "Rock n Roll" - Motown recorded most of their shit in-house too( literally, Hitsville was in a house)

    I understand that that was a local white rock & roll band that backed up Barrett Strong on "Money," which would explain why it sounds twangier and cruder than the Motown hits that followed.

    in the response to Batmon's earlier question, Motown had been signing local Detroit white garage rock acts since the early days - Nick & the Jaguars have a rare early single on Tamla - sort of a surf / rockabilly thing - in the mid 60s Motown signed the Underdogs to VIP, the Ones etc

    And they kept doing that during the early Rare Earth days, with not only the band of the same name, but also Stoney & Meatloaf, Sunday Funnies, and the Power Of Zeus.

  • pickwick33pickwick33 8,946 Posts
    batmon said:
    Motown could get a "Ken Burns" treatment doc.

    And maybe somebody could interview Rare Earth (the band), since they get left out of these Motown retrospectives.

    I wanna know how white rock bands felt signing w/ Rare Earth Records and who was behind the sub.

    Going by a piece that Rolling Stone magazine did on the band circa '73, I get the impression that they were misunderstood and that Motown was not wired for actual rock bands, even one with soul appeal.

    The Rare Earth label, to its' credit, had a line on two of the most fertile rock scenes of the late sixties, Detroit and the UK. However, they seemed to get most of the third-tier bands from Detroit, couldn't break the UK acts they had., and any success that came from this new label was a fluke. The band Rare Earth actually had a pretty good heyday going between 1970-73, but they too seemed to drop off around the time Motown became a short-lived movie company.

  • SoulhawkSoulhawk 3,197 Posts
    yeah, I don't think they had an ear for rock - the Underdogs are a pretty great band, but they don't have the commercial appeal of say, Bob Seger( one of their fellow labelmates on Hideout)

    as for 70's signings - Riot seemed designed as a "if you like War, you'll love Riot!"

    re 'Money' being 'twangy' that's just how Detroit bands sounded then - check out Mary Wells 'Bye Bye Baby' - Motown's first real hit

    one of the rarest Barrett Strong records is 'Lets Rock' - which was buried when 'Money' hit

    'soul' wasn't a category back then, it was all Rock N Roll

  • pickwick33pickwick33 8,946 Posts
    Soulhawk said:
    yeah, I don't think they had an ear for rock - the Underdogs are a pretty great band, but they don't have the commercial appeal of say, Bob Seger( one of their fellow labelmates on Hideout)

    I think the Underdogs could have made it under the right circumstances.

    It was the later Detroit acts on the Rare Earth label that I'm skeptical about. Sunday Funnies would have headed straight for the cutout bin no matter what label they were on. (And they were originally on Hideout Records too...)

    re 'Money' being 'twangy' that's just how Detroit bands sounded then - check out Mary Wells 'Bye Bye Baby' - Motown's first real hit

    one of the rarest Barrett Strong records is 'Lets Rock' - which was buried when 'Money' hit

    'soul' wasn't a category back then, it was all Rock N Roll

    I have a Barrett Strong compilation - one of those "20th Century Masters" deals you always see - and the general aura is close to what Nathaniel Mayer was doing at the same time for Fortune, another Detroit company.
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