The Temptations & The Four Tops

With a combined 17 Number One songs on Billboard’s R&B charts, these two groups represent not only the quintessential Motown sound but authentic American music royalty, their signature harmonies and dashing stage presence defining a generation of popular music.

Both groups continue to thrill audiences around the world, with songs like the Tops’ “Baby, I Need Your Loving” and “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch),” and the Temps’ “My Girl” and “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone,” and more. Both are inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The Temptations are world-renowned superstars of entertainment, revered for their phenomenal catalog of music and prolific career. They are one of the most iconic, bestselling brands in the entertainment world today. While the group has evolved over the years, Dr. Otis Williams has continued to lead the group and carry the torch forward for the next generation of Temptations’ fans.

Ranked #1 in Billboard magazine’s most recent list of the “Greatest R&B/Hip-Hop Artists of All Time,” The Temptations also appear in the magazine’s 125th Anniversary list of the “125 Greatest of All Time Artists.” In addition, Rolling Stone magazine named the group among the “100 Greatest Artists of All Time.” In September of 2020, the editors of Rolling Stone magazine commented that The Temptations are “Indisputably the greatest black vocal group of the Modern Era…,” and listed the group’s Anthology album among the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time.” The Anthology album has appeared in all three of Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums’ lists.

The group celebrated its 60th Anniversary in 2021-2022.

The Four Tops, originally called the Four Aims, made their first single for Chess in 1956, and spent seven years on the road and in nightclubs, singing pop, blues, Broadway, but mostly jazz—four-part harmony jazz. When Motown’s Berry Gordy Jr. found out they had hustled a national “Tonight Show” appearance, he signed them without an audition to be the marquee act for the company’s Workshop Jazz label. That proved short-lived, and Levi Stubbs’ powerhouse baritone lead and the exquisite harmonies of Abdul “Duke” Fakir, Renaldo “Obie” Benson, and Lawrence Payton started making one smash after another with the writing-producing trio Holland Dozier-Holland.

When Motown left Detroit in 1972 to move to Los Angeles, the steadfast Tops decided to stay at home, continuing to churn out hits songs for a number of record labels over the years.

In 1990, with 24 Top 40 pop hits to their credit, the Four Tops were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame. Though they would no longer have hits on record, the group continued to be a hit in concert, touring incessantly, a towering testament to the enduring legacy of the Motown Sound they helped shape and define. Following Payton’s death in 1997, the group briefly worked as a trio until Theo Peoples, a former Temptation, was recruited to restore the group to a quartet. When Stubbs subsequently grew ill, Peoples became the lead singer and former Motown artist producer Ronnie McNeir was enlisted to fill Payton’s spot. In 2005, when Benson died, Payton’s son Roquel replaced him.

From Rolling Stone’s 2004 article “The Immortals – The Greatest Artists Of All Time,” Smokey Robinson remembered: “They were the best in my neighborhood in Detroit when I was growing up (and) the Four Tops will always be one of the biggest and the best groups ever. Their music is forever.”

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