Levi Stubbs, lead singer of Motown greats The Four Tops, passed away after a long battle with cancer on October 17. He was 72.
Stubbs’ baritone voice gave The Four Tops performances a grit and an aching urgency that set them in contrast to the other Motown groups like The Temptations or The Miracles. Stubbs lead such classics as Baby I Need Your Loving, I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch), Reach Out (I’ll Be There), Midnight Flower, and Standing In The Shadows Of Love.
Stubbs also voiced the part of the meat-eating plant Audrey II in the movie version of Little Shop Of Horrors.
Stubbs was diagnosed with cancer in the mid-Nineties and had a stroke shortly after. Two of the other Four Tops died before Stubbs, leaving Abdul “Duke” Fakir as the lone surviving member of the soul greats.
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