From the mountain top where they keep the most impassioned love songs of the 60s, it's Bernadette by the Four Tops, written by Holland-Dozier-Holland. One of the best Motown lyrics, nested in a stirring arrangement, and powered by the vocal intensity of Levi Stubbs. Released in February 1967, it hit #4 on the charts.
Bernadette, people are searchin' for The kind of love that we possessed Some go on, searchin' their whole life through And never find the love, I've found in you
And when I speak of you, I see envy in other men's eyes And I'm well aware of what's on their minds They pretend to be my friend, when all the time They long to persuade you from my side
They'd give the world and all they own For just one moment we have known
Bernadette, they want you because of the pride that gives But Bernadette, I want you because, I need you to live
Recently I've been on a bit of a Motown binge (see, for instance, Holland-Dozier-Holland). I was going to do a post on my Top Ten favorites but after #1 (Reach Out, I'll Be There) and #2 (Marvin Gaye's version of I Heard It Through The Grapevine), I couldn't make any further headway in the ratings because Motown produced so much great music from the early 60s through 1972.
On a long plane flight a couple of weeks ago I listened to my personal Motown playlist and was reminded once again just how many outstanding songs came out of Detroit and how good the music makes me feel, so I decided to just post my playlist. I listened through my Bose earbuds, which accentuates the bass, enabling me to further appreciate James Jamerson's playing as part of the Motown studio band.
A couple of omissions regarding Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye. In the early 70s both transformed their music. In the case of Wonder, it was elevating an already astonishing level of virtuosity into the stratosphere with a creative explosion that lasted the entire decade, so Talking Book and its single, Superstition, and subsequent albums are not included here, nor is Marvin's What's Going On? and its successors.
From 1963 into 1968 if you purchased a Motown Record and saw Holland-Dozier-Holland listed as the writers, you knew you were getting quality.
Brothers Eddie and Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier wrote for Martha & The Vandellas (Heat Wave; Nowhere To Run; Jimmie Mack), Marvin Gaye (Can I Get a Witness; How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You), The Miracles (Mickey's Monkey), Freda Payne (Band of Gold), Jr Walker & The All Stars (I'm A Road Runner), The Isley Brothers (This Old Heart of Mine), and Chairmen of the Board (Give Me Just A Little More Time).
H-D-H scored 27 Top Ten singles in those five years, peaking with their work with The Supremes and The Four Tops. For The Supremes they wrote ten #1's and two other top ten singles, including Come See About Me; Stop In The Name of Love; and You Keep Me Hanging On.
The Four Tops were my Motown favorites in the mid-60s, and H-D-H wrote their 1965 breakthrough single, I Can't Help Myself, which reached #1. They followed that up with Baby, I Need Your Loving; It's The Same Old Song; Bernadette; Standing In The Shadow of Love; Wake Me, Shake Me; and the greatest of all Motown songs, Reach Out I'll Be There, with lead singer Levi Stubbs' passionate vocal alternating between singing and shouting.
Reach Out hit #1 in October 1966. It's funny what was important to my 15-year old self and that I still remember; there was a back and forth at the top of the charts between Reach Out and an execrable song by The Association (1), Cherish, so I was rooting for the Four Tops.
The Holland Brothers and Lamont Dozier are all alive and in their early 80s. Thanks for the great music, guys!
(1) The Association was one of those mid-60s groups mostly put together in the studio but which evolved into a real band. They had three huge hits, Cherish, Never My Love, and Windy, none of which I liked but I thought their very first single, Along Comes Mary was great. This is the fast paced single version and below is a slower paced take they did on Ed Sullivan which also contains the unusual lyrics, which were difficult to understand on the original single.
Reach Out (I'll Be There) by the Four Tops may be the best song to come out of Motown in the 1960s. Written by Lamont Dozier and brothers Brian and Eddie Holland, who wrote so many of Motown's hits, Reach Out features a pounding bass line, and Levi Stubbs' inspired, straining vocal. It was a #1 in the US and Britain. More than a half century later it remains a great, great, song.
Note: The video says it is 1967 but the single was released in the fall of 1966.
