FOUR TOPS - REACH OUT I’LL BE THERE

Released : 1966

Charted:  UK: #1     US: #1 

"Reach Out I'll Be There" is a song recorded by the Four Tops from their 1967 fourth studio album “Reach Out”. Written and produced by Motown's main production team, Holland–Dozier–Holland, the song is one of the most widely-known Motown hits of the 1960s and is today considered the Four Tops' signature song.

The Four Tops recorded this in just two takes, and had practically forgotten about the song until it was released, assuming it was a "throwaway" album track. Motown boss Berry Gordy had other ideas and released it as a single. Gordy had a knack for identifying hit songs, and got this one right.

Dozier explained: "Brian, Eddie and I often had discussions about what women really want most of all from a man, and after talking about some of our experiences with women, we all three agreed that they wanted someone to be there for them, through thick or thin, and be there at their beck and call! Thus this song was born."

The line, "happiness is just an illusion" appeared in another Motown song that was on the charts at the same time: "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted" by Jimmy Ruffin. That one also rhymed "illusion" with "confusion."

This song has an interesting chart history in the UK: The original hit #1 in 1966, Gloria Gaynor took a disco version to #14 in 1975, a remix of the Four Tops version by the production team Stock, Aitken & Waterman went to #11 in 1988, and Michael Bolton's version hit #37 in 1993.

It was just the second Motown song to hit #1 in the UK, following "Baby love”  by The Supremes, which reached the summit in 1964.

FOUR TOPS - BABY I NEED YOUR LOVING

Released : July 10, 1964

Charted:  US: #11 

"Baby I Need Your Loving" is a 1964 hit single recorded by the Four Tops for the Motown label. Written and produced by Motown's main production team Holland–Dozier–Holland, the song was the group's first Motown single and their first pop Top 20 hit. It was also their first million-selling hit single.

The Four Tops were around for 11 years before they broke through with this song. It was their first single for Motown Records, which signed the group in 1963 after they had been touring and recording on smaller labels for a decade. The investment paid off for Motown, and The Four Tops became one of the most successful and enduring acts on the label.

Like many Holland-Dozier-Holland compositions, the uptempo music belies the subject matter in the song: the guy is lonely and heartbroken, desperate for a love that will never return. They often wrote these songs as ballads before working them over. He explained the process: "As a rule, most of the songs we started out to get the right feeling and the right emotion of the chords. And to get that feeling, we would start writing in ballad form - a slower, torch-song type of feeling. Then when we got in the studio, we would pick up the tempo. Because at the time, dance music was in with the kids, so we tried to make them commercial by picking up the speed. That's what made the songs commercial."

This was the first of many Motown hits for the group, and the beginning of a fruitful collaboration with the Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting team. Lamont Dozier said in a 1976 interview with Blues & Soul: "We've all been together virtually since I was a kid in Detroit and we always had no problem working together. We used to just lock ourselves in the studios with some barbecue ribs and Cold Duck and come up with an album in a couple of days. I would say that they were probably the easiest guys to work with, always professional and polished."