Motown M 1062 (B), July 1964
B-side of Baby I Need Your Loving
(Written by Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Edward Holland Jr.)
Stateside SS 336 (B), September 1964
B-side of Baby I Need Your Loving
(Released in the UK under license through EMI/Stateside Records)
The incredible vocal talents of the Four Tops, and the stunning effect when their voices were combined with those of the Andantes, is a topic that deserves a book all of its own (and I’m aware that in spending so many words reviewing the A-side Baby I Need Your Loving, I almost ended up writing that book!)
Even when Motown’s strongest magic departs the studio, and the material the boys and girls are left to work with is of a lower calibre – as with this B-side, for instance – the vocals are often still just outstanding. It doesn’t take much pushing for all the vocal elements to fall out of place, as we’ll see on a few future releases, but here all Seven Andantops sound as lovely as ever.
They’re given a lot less to do, mind. Once again, this is a showcase for Levi Stubbs and his magnificent voice, one minute ocean-deep, the next throatily hoarse, but the harmonies behind him are far less intricate than on Baby I Need Your Loving. This song is an off-the-peg 6/8 doo-wop number reworked with vast walls of strings and choral trappings. It sounds like a cover of something the Tops, or some other atavistic doo-wop group, might have sung on some street corner in 1956, but it’s been tidied up; the slicker, more professional Motown band and those orchestral strings keeping the tempo chugging along behind Levi, meaning the other Tops (who might otherwise have provided a multi-part harmony backing) aren’t really needed at all.
Producers and co-writers Holland and Dozier, perhaps realising their mistake in slathering the song with all that accompaniment (a throwback, perhaps, to the Tops’ abortive 1963 Workshop Jazz album project, Breaking Through, which featured a selection of standards and other MOR material done in a soft-jazz style), still needed to get the Four Tops onto a Four Tops record, still wanted to use that remarkable Seven Topdantes blend, and so while Levi again gives it his all, the Other Six provide choral backing, a series of wordless harmony ooohs and aaahs in the far distance.
It’s a bit of a waste, really. Obie, Duke and Lawrence don’t really identify themselves until we’re into the second verse, and even then they’re very much part of the furniture (or even the wallpaper, if we’re stretching this decorating analogy as far as it’ll go) rather than the main attraction.
Even if the Tops and Andantes are underused on what turns out to be a rather slight little song, though, it still all sounds rather lovely. And I’d listen to these guys sing the ingredients off a bottle of HP Sauce.
MOTOWN JUNKIES VERDICT
(I’ve had MY say, now it’s your turn. Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment, or click the thumbs at the bottom there. Dissent is encouraged!)
You’re reading Motown Junkies, an attempt to review every Motown A- and B-side ever released. Click on the “previous” and “next” buttons below to go back and forth through the catalogue, or visit the Master Index for a full list of reviews so far.
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| The Four Tops “Baby I Need Your Loving” |
Jimmy Ruffin “Since I’ve Lost You” |
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Motown Junkies 
Would I like “A Love Like Yours Don’t Come Knocking Everyday” more if, all these years, it didn’t stand in the shadow of “Heat Wave?”. That’s kind of how I regard this one, and I feel a ‘5’ is fair.
But like everybody else in the Motown stable, Four Tops’ ‘b’ sides too are about to get a lot, a lot better: “Love Has Gone,” “Where Did You Go” “Sad Souviniers,” “Your Love Is Amazing,” “I Got A Feeling,” “I Like Everything About You,” …just oh so many.
For at least their first four coming studio albums, I never thought of skipping any track.
In an earlier entry, Nixon, you aptly described the run of Supremes hits as akin to tempting desserts; that’s why they go so well with Tops’ hits which are always solid meat and potatoes. There was no chance of overdosing on the girls, when there was always tempting hearty dishes right alongside by the Tops, Tempts, Marvin & Walker (can’t wait till you start on his stuff.)
Now I’ve made myself hungry… 🙂
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Forget the song; forget the singers; forget the band track. Holland & Dozier’s production on this is impeccable.
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Agreed, if looking at what was on the top 40 at the time, for a “throwaway “, B side, this production is outstanding!
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I really like this song. I think the 4 Tops were very underrated as a ballad group. This one sounds like it might have been somewhat influenced by “You Send Me”. In fact the opening line is “Darling you…”
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Disagree. “You Send Me” was a very simple song (overly so) where here Levi has to do a little bit of work to get the song metered out properly, lyrically speaking.
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Although you two disagree, I agree with both of you! (Is that even possible?) The main idea is indeed shamelessly lifted from You Send Me, but this is a much better song. Whenever I listen to You Send Me after a long time, I get excited because it’s a great hook, but before it’s halfway done I’m bored because it doesn’t really go anywhere. So, plagiarism aside, it’s sort of a public service to give us a more enjoyable and durable vehicle for that hook.
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(8 years later …) I still agree with all of this but we haven’t given enough credit to the title hook they added (“call on me, call on me”) It’s just IV V I IV but each one has the melody on the 6th. And of course the melody on the 6th of the first chord is at the center of the “you-ou-ou-ou” of You Send Me hook, so the new hook is organically built on the You Send Me hook. And it’s really a beautiful, haunting hook, and they highlight it with the string quarter-esque intro. For me, this hook is vintage highest quality HDH. To get the whole song to that level, they’d need to change the other part to scour it of indebtedness to You Send Me and add a bridge. But my question is what, apart from Sam Cooke’s singing, has made You Send Me itself so successful over the years? It seems so generically doo-wop and yet there’s *something* undeniably great about the initial You Send Me hook. I feel it, but I can’t understand it for the life of me.
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I agree. I’d have given it a “6”. For a cut that wasn’t really given the “A” side treatment, it is uncommonly good.
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Bafflingly, the CMS vol 4 states Lawrence Payton gets the lead on ‘Call On Me’
Am I listening to a different cut/track?
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Heck no!!! That is clearly Levi…..i don’t have cms vol 4 but if you flip ober “Baby I Need Your Loving” (orig 45) or listen to the Four Tops first Motown Lp you KNOW Mr. Stubbs is leading out!
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