Four Tops Second Album (also known as Second Album) is a 1965 R&B studio album by vocal quartet the Four Tops. The album, released on the Motown record label, reached No. 3 on Billboard's Black Albums chart and No. 20 on the Billboard Top LPs chart.[4] The album contains three hit singles. "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)" reached No. 1 on both the Black Singles and Pop Singles charts, while "It's the Same Old Song" reached No. 2 and No. 5 respectively, and "Something About You" reached No. 9 and No. 19.[5] In 1990, Motown bundled the Four Tops' first two albums together in a release titled Four Tops/Four Tops Second Album.
Most of the tracks on Four Tops Live! were recorded on August 22, 1966 at The Roostertail in Detroit, as the inaugural concert in the Motown Monday series held that year by WKNR to showcase Motown's best-selling artists.[1] Chuck Thurston of The Detroit Free Press reviewed the August performance, noting the "frantic, always-in-motion harmonies" and superb musicianship of the backing band.[1] The single for Reach Out I’ll Be There had been released four days prior and went on to become a signature tune for the group, so they recorded a second show on September 11 of that year at the same venue, as well as a cover version of "You Can’t Hurry Love" which was at the top of the charts at that time.[1]
Domestically, Four Tops Live! was a hit, topping the R&B charts that year[2] and ranking third in Billboard's Top R&B LP's of 1967.[3] In the United Kingdom, the record had even more sustaining popularity, reaching fourth place on the charts,[2] staying in the top 10 for three months,[1] and spending 72 total weeks charting.
Motown founder Berry Gordy had the idea for this album, encouraging his stable of artists to turn toward new audiences for their music,[1] particularly higher class listeners.[2] The band recorded On Broadway with musician Frank Wilson in Los Angeles, with the exception of their covers of "Make Someone Happy" (recorded in 1964) and "Nice 'n' Easy" (recorded in 1963).
Yesterday's Dreams is the seventh overall and sixth studio album recorded by the Four Tops, issued by Motown Records in August 1968. The album was recorded as the main Motown songwriting/producing partnership of Holland–Dozier–Holland were leaving the label, and as a result only contains one song from them, "I'm in a Different World", which was released as a single.
There are several other original Motown songs on the album, including the title track, "Remember When", "We've Got a Strong Love (On Our Side)", "Can't Seem to Get You out of My Mind" and a cover of Stevie Wonder's "A Place in the Sun". The rest are cover songs produced by Ivy Jo Hunter and Frank Wilson.
The Magnificent 7 is a collaborative album combining Motown's premier vocal groups, The Supremes and The Four Tops. Issued by Motown in 1970, it followed two collaborative albums The Supremes did with The Temptations in the late 1960s. The album featured their hit cover of Ike & Tina Turner's "River Deep – Mountain High", which reached number 14 on the US Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. In the UK, the album peaked at number 6.[1] In December 1971, Billboard reported UK album sales of 30,000 copies.[2]
Apart from "Knock on My Door" (written by Patti Jerome and Joe Hinton), the tracks on the LP are covers of rock and soul songs, including the duet by Dinah Washington and Brook Benton "Baby (You've Got What It Takes)", Bobby Scott's "A Taste of Honey", Sly & the Family Stone's "Everyday People", Ed Townsend's "For Your Love" and Laura Nyro's "Stoned Soul Picnic", as well as hits by other Motown artists: the Tops' own "Without the One You Love (Life's Not Worth While)", the duet "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing" by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, Gaye's and Kim Weston's "It's Got to Be a Miracle (This Thing Called Love)", The Spinners' "Together We Can Make Such Sweet Music" and former Supremes' bandmate Diana Ross' 1970 debut solo single, "Reach Out and Touch (Somebody's Hand)".
"River Deep – Mountain High" was released as a single in the Netherlands, with "Knock on My Door" on the flip side. Two more singles were issued in the United Kingdom in 1972: "Without the One You Love" with "Let's Make Love Now" on the B side; and "Reach Out and Touch (Somebody's Hand)" backed by "Where Would I Be Without You, Baby". As was the case with the previous pairing of Diana Ross & The Supremes with The Temptations, Motown appeared to feel that group names alone would insure heavy sales and little attention was paid to content, thus the absence of original material. The album sold poorly in the USA but did better in Europe.
The Return of the Magnificent Seven is the second collaborative album between Motown label-mates The Supremes and Four Tops, released in 1971. The production only featured two covers compared to their first album together, The Magnificent 7, that included more than eight. Although the three albums the Supremes recorded with the Four Tops did not match the commercial success of the Supremes/Temptations duet albums (ironically loaded with covers), what they did have instead were original tunes, soulful lead vocals by Jean Terrell and Levi Stubbs and high production values in terms of arrangements and orchestration.
This second release is probably the best of the three Supremes/Four Tops albums. It includes two early songs by Dino Fekaris (who would go on to compose "I Will Survive") and Nick Zesses that were released as singles: "You Gotta Have Love in Your Heart" (in the United States, United Kingdom, West Germany, Italy and Netherlands) and "I'll Try Not to Cry" (in France and Netherlands). Both songs were produced by Clay McMurray and had on their flip sides tunes by Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson: respectively, the romantic ballad "I'm Glad About It" and the up-tempo, Latin-flavored "One More Bridge to Cross", a typical Ashford & Simpson song with a social commentary. McMurray also produced Tom Baird's "I Wonder Where We're Going" (sung almost collectively by the seven singers) and his own composition, "Where Would I Be Without You Baby". Veteran producer Henry Cosby was in charge of a cover of Petula Clark's hit "Call Me" (written by Tony Hatch); a smooth love song of his own, "If You Could See Me Now", and a third contribution by Zesses and Fekaris, the ballad "Let's Make Love Now". Johnny Bristol produced a remake of Tammi Terrell's solo hit, "I Can't Believe You Love Me", and Bobby Taylor closed the album with a happy ballad about puzzling lovers, written by Pam Sawyer and Gloria Jones, "What Do You Have to Do (To Stay on the Right Side of Love)", also featuring solo vocals by Mary Wilson. Despite being issued as a duet recording, the lone single "You Gotta Have Love In Your Heart" was obviously a Jean Terrell solo with Levi Stubbs' paltry four lines of vocal added later. Regardless of getting off to a good start on the pop singles charts, Motown mysteriously pulled the song possibly because of ongoing negotiations with the Four Tops to re-sign with the label.
A collection of compositions handled with the expertise of the Motown production machine, supervised by late Rev. Frank Wilson. While charting low on the Billboard Pop Album charts, on the Cash Box Pop Album charts this album charted much higher, closer to being a successful release. Levi Stubbs was said to be particularly upset with the failure of this lp. The Four Tops left Motown a year later.
Dynamite is the third and last collaborative album between labelmates The Supremes and The Four Tops, released on the Motown label in 1971. The album was a collection of material recorded for the Magnificent Seven albums, but which had not been included on either of those two albums. The cover artwork was an illustration based on photo sessions from the Return of the Magnificent Seven album artwork. In the US, Dynamite was as commercially unsuccessful as The Magnificent 7 (1970) and The Return of the Magnificent Seven (1971), peaking at the lower hundreds of the Billboard Top 200. The album fared much better on the Billboard R&B charts, peaking at 21.
It includes several covers of previous hits and a few Motown originals. It opens with "It's Impossible", which had been a hit in Spanish as "Somos novios", for its composer Armando Manzanero, and later successfully covered by Perry Como and R&B group New Birth. Two of the cuts, "Hello Stranger" and "Love the One You're With", had also been hits for their composers, respectively Barbara Lewis and Stephen Stills, while the group Bread reached the top of the Easy Listening chart with "If", and both Aretha Franklin and The Ones had moderate successes with Franklin's composition "Don't Let Me Lose This Dream". Of the Motown material the album producers chose two mild hits by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, "If I Could Build My Whole World Around You" and "Good Lovin' Ain't Easy to Come By"; "Do You Love Me Just a Little, Honey", a song co-written by Gladys Knight, Johnny Bristol, Harvey Fuqua and Vernon Bullock; plus two compositions by Mel Larson and Jerry Marcellino: "Melodie", which had been recorded the same year by Bobby Darin, and "The Bigger You Love (The Harder You Fall)".
No singles were picked up in the United States, but one of the favorite original compositions, "Melodie" (with "Good Lovin' Ain't Easy to Come By" on the flip side), was released in New Zealand. A year later, the Four Tops parted from Motown to sign with ABC Records (today, the catalogs of both ABC and Motown are owned by Universal Music Group). There was much speculation as to why this album was even issued as the previous two duet lps by the two groups did not sell well. Motown was perhaps trying to appease the Four Tops who were looking to leave Motown and were very vocal about their unhappiness with the company. It was said that neither knew the album was issued until fans brought them to concerts for autographs. In any event, it was a dismal failure for two groups who had seen better days.
This album marked a return to the label for the group who released a string of albums for other labels in the 1970s and 1980s and a failed experiment at trying to reunite with songwriting team Holland–Dozier–Holland in 1978.[1] The trio wrote and produced half of the songs on this album, marking their first collaboration in a decade and the last one that all three would participate in together.[2] In Lamont Dozier's memoir 2019 memoir How Sweet It Is, he recounts that the sessions were pleasant, but administrative and legal issues related to rights interfered with his ability to participate in future work with Motown and he alleges that the label consequently refused to promot Back Where I Belong, even though "I Just Can't Walk Away" was a minor hit.[3] The Tops also appeared on the special Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever and collaborated with fellow Motown artists The Temptations on this release and a subsequent tour.
Christmas Here with You is a 1995 studio album by American soul music vocal group Four Tops, released on Motown.
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