Sharon Cooper

Steady on now I was born there and spent my formative first 14 years there: Must say it has gone down the pan a lot since then! people are people wherever they are and the low lifes who did this could be replicated throughout the country: sign of the times and all that. Sharon

Cause I'm 54. have 3 grown kids i like to spend time with , a busy life, a busy week, want to play golf, have only 2 days in a week to relax, can't afford the travelling, often the music sends me to sleep, shift system not compatible ,the dog wants walking, am often djing at soul nights and am basically to knackered to be up all night at the weekend. Apart from that can't think of anything really. chris

the rest of the question was, 'what makes a soul record A SOUL RECORD, or should I say a soul song Cause Mick Hucknell, Tom Jones are now considered 'soul Singers' when once upon a time only black singers were thought of that way, but checking out our own genre N/S it's littered with white guys singing 'soul' so the question is what makes soul music soul music whatever the ethnic background.

huh huh huh

Heard it on the radio last week and thought it sounded good. Since then I must have heard it 50 times! One of lads is constantly playing it: Obviously has the right sound for 19 year olds and old stages like myself!! Sharon

https://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=h1May52b1RQ Totally in pieces here! So sad and so brave. A truly truly great man. Sharon

Penny Valentine guardian.co.uk, Friday October 17 2008 23.07 BSTArticle historyThere are few singers who could evoke the kind of divine desperation that Levi Stubbs brought to the work of the Four Tops during the 1960s and 70s, be it the frantic pacing his voice implied as he searched through Seven Rooms of Gloom or the moment after the musical hiatus in Bernadette when he vocally clawed back the title object of his desire. For Stubbs, who has died aged 72, had the most dramatic voice of all the Tamla Motown artists during that label's golden era. Yet despite a catalogue of hit singles, it was probably for one song alone that the singer, and the group he fronted, carved a historic niche for themselves. Reach Out, I'll Be There, a tumultuous example of romantic devotion, was released in 1966. The high woodwind motif and incessantly demanding rhythm section that marked the record was to become a trademark for the group's sound. Reach Out provided Motown with an early number one hit on both sides of the Atlantic, and the Four Tops with a musical recipe for success that lasted them for a decade. Levi Stubbs was born Levi Stubbles and brought up in Detroit, a cousin of the singer Jackie Wilson. Like many black American teenagers in the early 1950s, he and three of his schoolfriends - Abdul "Duke" Fakir, Lawrence Payton and Renaldo "Obie" Benson - formed a vocal group, The Four Aims, mainly playing school graduation dances and church functions. With harmonies redolent of The Inkspots, they quickly moved on to the jazz and R&B circuit, working with Billy Eckstine and Count Basie, as well as Betty Carter, Della Reese, Brook Benton and with Wilson himself. By 1956 Stubbs had shortened his surname and the group had signed to Chess records, released Kiss Me Baby and changed their name, apparently to avoid confusion with the close harmony group The Ames Brothers. Two further undistinguished singles - Ain't That Love, for Columbia, and Where Are You, for Riverside - followed without success. In 1959, the young Detroit-based car worker Berry Gordy started Tamla Motown, and the Four Tops signed to the company four years later. Although the group were keen to record jazz and were going to go onto the Workshop label subsidiary, Gordy had already employed a brilliant young in-house writing and production trio for Motown - brothers Eddie and Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier - and it was to be the Four Tops and the Supremes who would benefit most from their talent. The Four Tops spent some months providing back-up vocals to other Motown groups, including the Supremes on When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes, but in 1964 released their first single on the label. Holland, Dozier and Holland's Baby I Need Your Loving went straight into the American chart. Although it started pleasantly enough, with the group in close harmony, it was marked by finger clicks, sinuous bass and strings, which became key ingredients of the Four Tops sound, on later records joined by hard tambourine and searing sax breaks. But it was after the initial chorus and on the line "empty nights echo your name" that the song lifted off, bringing Stubbs startlingly broken-edged vocals to the fore, his voice imbuing the song with a drama beyond its paper worth. The success of the track was swiftly followed by a string of hits which repeated the formulae, including I Can't Help Myself, It's The Same Old Song and, in May 1966, the Stevie Wonder/Ivy Hunter song Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever, produced by Hunter herself. It was three months after that hit that Motown released Reach Out, I'll Be There. Despite its complexity and its use of minor chords, the record instantly became a number one in both America and Britain. Its success and its place as one of the great Motown tracks might well have overwhelmed the singers themselves, but it was the combination of their harmonies and the raw energy of Stubbs' voice that struck the popular imagination and made it a classic. Not as mellifluous as Smokey Robinson nor as street-tough as the Temptations, the sound of Stubbs' voice , and the songs it was used on, seemed like an early example of a masculinity in crisis. Reach Out relied for its impact on his extraordinary tussle with the lyrics, driving them foreward with that resonant "hup and holler" - the sudden "work shout" - rare for the white pop charts of the 60s, but familiar to black record buyers raised on churchgoing and gospel, and hence soul music's mix of the sacred and profane. Yet ironically, when Holland, Dozier and Holland had first played the song to the group, Stubbs had disliked it and initially pressed for one of the others to sing lead. That same year the group came to Britain, headlining at the showcase Sunday concerts promoted by the Beatles manager Brian Epstein at London's Saville Theatre, later selling out the Royal Albert Hall. The group would often enjoy more chart success in Britain than in America over the following years, and much of that was due to their live appearances - a fact further reflected in the high sales of their live albums. At a time when young white British groups were struggling to give a passable account of their records, the Four Tops - like all Motown's acts having gone through rigorous schooling in stage presentation - were led by Stubbs through seamless renditions of their hits; his voice at full throttle, their harmonies impeccable, the whole topped off by precise dance routines. In 1967 Holland, Dozier and Holland left Motown. The Four Tops fell back on recording non-original material. Although their choice of songs, by white writers outside the soul stream, struck critics as odd, in fact their treatment of Tim Hardin's If I Were A Carpenter (1967), The Left Banke's Walk Away Renee (1968) and Jimmy Webb's Macarthur Park (1971) were all instantly transformed by Stubbs' yearning and were all hits. A smooth version of an old Tommy Edwards song, It's All in the Game (1970), took them back into the American chart, as did their duet with the Supremes on a re-vamp of the Ike and Tina Turner hit River Deep, Mountain High (1971), but things at Motown had changed. By the early 70s the label had switched from being a family-run firm to a Los Angles based corporation. In 1972, along with other groups, like Gladys Knight and the Pips, the Four Tops left it. The Four Tops had been the most stable group in the history of Motown. A tight unit on stage and off, they never indulged in internal bickering or personnel changes, and, unlike many of his Motown contemporaries, Stubbs never contemplated going solo, staying close to Benson, Payton and Fakir and always living in Detroit. Although Stubbs and the group went on to enjoy the odd hit on other labels, returned at one point to Motown, and never stopped working the American cabaret circuit, the combination of changing tastes and a lack of material that suited Stubbs' vocal style meant they never really recaptured their original power. When Lawrence Payton died in 1997 they refused to replace him and worked for some time as a trio, re-named the Tops, until they finally conceeded to needing the extra voice and adding the Temptations Theo Peoples. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1999, the group had represented a key moment in popular music and Stubbs' voice continued to enthrall a generation of younger musicians. Two decades after the release of Reach Out, in 1986, Billy Bragg wrote and recorded Levi Stubbs' Tears. In 2000 Stubbs suffered a stroke, and did not perform again. He is survived by his wife Clineice Townsend, five children and three sisters. Levi Stubbs (Stubbles), singer, born April 6 1936; died October 17 2008 This obituary has been updated since the death of its author in 2003

Whowww how do you replace that, you can't thanks for that post

Well what can you say, which superlatives do you choose to pay homage to one of the greatest soul voices ever, absolutely loved Levis voice and respect to the 4 Tops for staying togehter over the years RIP and hats of to Mr Levi Stubbs.

Malc and everybody else who doesn't know, the dancers you saw tonight are the 'northern' dancers on the Souled Out film

Should have known better after KEVH mentioned how bad the programme was last week, Back in the late 70s Sharon & I returned home from work and while having dinner watched a news magazine progamme, think it was Midlands Today. They had an item about the revival of the Teddy Boy scene. There they sat in their drapes with their brillcreamed hair and flowing skirts etc, I have never forgotten that article and still remember them talking about young people getting into it. Thought then how stupid they all looked and now it's our turn. Don't mind people sitting and taking about the scene with their baggies etc on because it relates to their youth have a real problem though with the thought that todays youth want to go round looking like it.

Got my stamped F/w of ebay for £40.00

You Give boots as presents, how cruel is that

how about a white bloke with a black backing group with a white backing band on a white mans label paid for by a black blokes money thread chris

Ambassadors. To Much Of A good Thing. Now perhaps we should have a thread about how many tunes were done by black singers cause it seems all our N/s favs were mainly white Chris

Ok let me think, uummm someone taks a copy of Mel britt and copies it, sticks a look alike label on it and it's called a boot, now 20 years or so later someone takes a cd/lp track copies it and sticks it on viynal and calls it a carver, can someone tell me the difference please? Chris

I was making a comment about earlier comments and not yours, apologies for not making that clear.

I was led to believe, through one of the production team (don't recalll the name) that the film was due to be shown initially at Cannes next year then for general release. On the point made by someone earlier about who will see the film then I suggest that in the main the viewing will be done by the soul fans around the world and not by Joe public who (like some on the set) have no idea what Wigan Casino was or what N/soul is all about . On having a jibe at young people well all I can say is my lad is a N/S fan and takes great care to imitate some of the best dancers you can see on the few films,dvds etc available about the early days. its not a jibe at the young but a jibe, if you want to call it that, at the lack of education re the scene toward the youngsters there. They were dancing as they thought best, it isn't there fault that they were not given proper instruction. Chris

Yes we expected a lot of waiting around so wasn't surprised about that. When I said that some of the dance scenes made me cringe I wasn't refering to those from the agencies etc who couldn't dance the 'Northern Style' but a group of dancers who were part of a group known as *** Dancers who were called upon to do the close up scenes of northern dancing, these, it seems, were meant to be those who could do the dancing, Obiviously I'm only commenting on a few minutes of the film which may have taken forever to film but what bothered me was that despite the fact that my lad and one or two others had been asked about there dancing capabilities they were, has you said in the main ignored. Chris

I think that this is the the way things are heading and rapidly, trouble is it has never begun for them. Chris

thought this was a Cleethorpes tune?

I took my youngest son to this just last Monday, he'd had a call about being an extra, so being a winner of N/S dancing contests of we went. Phew, sat, walked, and frouned my way through the day up until 3.20am when filming stopped and then back Tuesday for a session from 1pm through till midnight. Being able to walk round the set was great, seeing all that activity and folks doing specific jobs but as time went by it became more and more obvious that the homework hadn't been done to any great extent. Talking on the set with a member of the crew on the Monday night I was told by this person that they "only knew two things about N/S, one that there was loads of fights and two there wasn't any drugs". It was obvious from the scenes I saw being filmed that that was exactly what everybody else thought. Most of the extras were teenagers either from agencys or from Stoke and surronding areas who quite clearly had not been given any real idea as to how you dance to northern and this again was reflected in the scenes, some of which made me cringe. Ok I know you have to have a story, and there was a lot of energy in the dance scenes mainly, and thankfully because they chose not to use (on this occasion anyway)balding fat blokes who still think they can dance the way they did back then. We finally left, his choice, half way through the Tuesday session because he had become cheesed of with the whole experiance, thankfully it hasn't put him of and he'll be at Prestatyn with us. Ill still go and see the film because these things can seem a little strange while in the process of filming, but it will not be with any real expectation about how it represents something I was involved in as a teenager. Chris

I'm not sure if the R & Tiaras qualifies me ,anyway if I stick to my thoughts on the thread I am already disqualified. Perhaps I'm to severe, but I do think the first issue, however little the budget, is the OV. Chris

If you want you can check Pilsley Lookback and see for yourself.

So from now on I'll play whatever i want and when some clever clogs comes up and asks if it's on the OV I'll respond by asking him if he has a copy of the AV, if he/she say yes I will bow to their superior collection and give my spot over to then cause THEY ARE the real originals