RIP Duke Fakir

Duke Fakir of The Four Tops has sadly passed away just days after he announced he was retiring from the music industry aged 88. He was the last surviving original member of the group.

When getting into any genre of music, one thing I consider to be important is to learn about the roots. When I really got into R&B at the start of the 21st century it was generally accepted that a lot of it was owned to Motown. It was The Temptations who I got into initially but The Four Tops soon followed.

The first time I came across The Four Tops was as a young boy in 1988 when they did "Loco In Acapulco". I just assumed they were a modern group, but in reality this was the end of their new music output more or less. They were one of many big name Motown acts who were popular in the 60s and early 70s. They made a brief comeback in the early 80s and then again in the late 80s. Since then they've been touring regularly playing the old hits.

As mentioned, The Temptations were the first Motown group I properly learned about and one notable thing was the sheer quantity of members they've had over the years. I assumed it would be a similar story for The Four Tops but when I bought my first Four Tops CD I discovered their story was quite different. First of all they formed in 1953, before The Temptations or even before Motown existed. Secondly they kept the same line up for 44 years until the death of Lawrence Payton in 1997.

By this point Obie Benson had also passed away, whilst Levi Stubbs had retired due to ill health. The Four Tops continued to play with Duke Fakir being the only member and I went to see them in concert along with The Temptations.

There were 2 main criticisms that came my way when I told people I was going to see them in concert. First is that some people can't get their head around the fact it's possible to listen to music that was made before you were born. Secondly they would question whether it's a real Four Tops gig when there's only one original member yet.

If you went to one of these concerts though you'd find people of all sorts of ages there, and most if not all of them thoroughly enjoyed the performances.

Of course many of us would have preferred to see the classic line up, but this was the nearest it was going to get. Seeing a man in his 80s singing and dancing on stage and convincingly too was impressive.

It couldn't go on forever though given Duke Fakir's age, and now the time has sadly come. RIP Duke Fakir.

Four Tops & Temptations @ The O2

Several years ago, before I lived in London, I was living in a part of the country where you didn't get much in the way of gigs. I found out the Temptations were playing in town, but knowing that the only original member still alive was Otis Williams, the member known for not singing, I initially wasn't interested. However, as it wasn't very often I had bands playing just down the road I decided to give it a go. I was pleasantly surprised, it was a very good gig, so much so that I went to see them again a few years later at the O2 with the Four Tops and last week was my third time going to the O2 to see the Four Tops and Temptations.

Support came from the Tavares. I arrived at the O2 around 19:40 to be greeted by airport style security to get in. Once inside, after buying a ludicrously price £5.50 pint of beer which tasted like socks and going some roundabout way to get into the arena itself, I got to my seat around 20:00, just in time to see the Tavares finishing their set. I don't think I can ever recall a support act finishing so early.

After what seemed quite a long wait, the Four Tops came on stage. Given the number of hits they've had, there was never going to be time to hear them all, but I was glad to hear them play "Loco in Acapulco" which was a song I remember coming out as a new song in 1988 and liking it. This was followed up by the excellent "Simple Game", this was definitely the highlight of the evening. They finished with a medley of hits starting with "Reach Out" and ending with "I Can't Help Myself". My only complaint was that the set seemed far too short, it couldn't have lasted any more than 45 minutes.

After another lengthy wait, on came the Temptations. The hit the ground running with "Get Ready" but then went to play some of their lesser known songs and gradually the crowd would start to sit down, clearly this wasn't going down very well. They never really recovered from that despite starting to play some of the hits everyone wanted to hear. What didn't help was that there was too much talking to the audience and not enough singing. We found out that new lead singer Larry Braggs had fell of the stage at a gig in Manchester a couple of days earlier and banged his head, so fair play to him for continuing. They did start to find their stride again, but it wasn't long before they played "My Girl" which you know marks the end of the gig. Again it probably lasted 45 minutes and I was on the tube by 22:30.

So Four Tops were excellent, Temptations a bit disappointing but overall it seemed to be over before you knew it. I'm sure the previous gigs lasted longer.