A place in the sun (Four Tops) (LP 719 - 722)

Four Tops  Yesterday's Dreams (Vinyl, Tamla Motown Records, 1968) ** 

Four Tops  Changing Times (Vinyl, Tamla Motown Records, 1970) ***

The Supremes and The Four Tops  The Return Of The Magnificent Seven (Vinyl, Tamla Motown Records, 1971) *** 

The Four Tops  Nature Planned It (Vinyl, Tamla Motown Records, 1972) *** 

Genre: Soul 

Places I remember: Chaldon Books and Records, Flashback Records, Real Groovy Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: I'm In A Different World (Yesterday's Dreams)

Gear costume: Hey Man/ We Got To get You A Woman (Nature Planned It)

Active compensatory factors: These albums are all later period Tamla Motown efforts. Without the genius trio of Holland-Dozier-Holland the hits dried up and the boys were searching for direction.

Which explains why they were drawn to tackling material like Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head (on Changing Times), but even then, Levi Stubbs and the boys overcome any trepidation you might feel. Still...

By The Time I Get To Phoenix (on Yesterday's Dreams) is another popular song that is pretty much indelibly linked to Glenn Campbell (and Isaac Hayes) but the Four Tops sing it so well you forget those other versions. That's pretty remarkable.

To my mind, the Tamla Motown organisation (The Sound Of Young America) didn't always do right by these guys - shoddy covers (Return of the Magnificent Seven is particularly embarrassing), sloppy cover notes (they can't seem to make up their mind if it's Four Tops or The Four Tops), and material that seemed to be inclined towards populism and the schmaltzy end of the market (Daydream Believer, Once Upon A Time and The Sweetheart Tree on Yesterday's Dreams are examples) rather than quality and gritty street cred material that starts surfacing in the early seventies (which ABC eventually cashed in on).

To summarise these four as albums: Yesterday's Dreams is uneven in quality - some greatness on side one along with A Place In The Sun ending side 2 and some filler on side 2; Changing Times is a much more cohesive album, sound and concept wise and although the social activism stance at Tamla Motown is quaint, forced, worthy, embarrassing depending on your point of view, you can never question the motives of the Four Tops; Return of the Magnificent Seven is, like The Magnificent Seven, a collaboration with post Diana Ross Supremes that works well and the production values are set to high; Nature Planned It sees them in a holding pattern for the most part.

Where do they all belong? The higher quality ABC years' albums have already appeared on Goo Goo (just do a search if you're keen to read them). One to come - from the Casablanca eighties years. Eighties. Casablanca. Be afraid.