Do What You Gotta Do - the Four Tops
Vocal male soul groups groups generally follow the doo-wop model of first tenor, second tenor, baritone, bass and falsetto with the first tenor as lead singer, although sometimes, as with the Stylistics, the lead was the falsetto. The Four Tops were unusual in that their lead singer, Levi Stubbs, was a baritone. Holland/Dozier/Holland, the Tops' songwriter production team at Motown, would usually get Stubbs to sing an octave higher than was natural for him which gave their songs their trademark sense of desperation and angst. HDH wrote and produced 11 of their 13 US hits prior to their departure from Motown in 1967. There then followed a speight of hits that were non-Motown covers such as "Walk Away Renée", "If I were a Carpenter", "It's All in the Game" and this Jimmy Webb number, "Do What You Gotta Do". Generally, cover versions of songs that have recently been hits for others are flops, but Stubbs' unique vocals, always able to add new, and original emphasis to the old words, ensured continuing chart success.
Here, despite Nina Simone's hit rendering of it as a double "A" side with "Ain't Got No, I Got Life" less than a year before, Levi Stubbs elevates the Tops' 1969 version of "Do What You Gotta Do" above the song's anodyne arrangement through his stentorian pronouncement of words such as "hurry", "sad", "they got ways", - oh hear his magic for yourself - the only way is to follow the words through that second verse, the unique Stubbs soulful emphasis shown in italics
"....make it in a hurry.
Now, I know they make you feel
make you feel kind of sad
say you don't treat me like you should
they got ways to make you feel no good
but they've got no way to know
I've had my eyes wide open from the very start
and girl, you never lied to me
and the part they will never, never see
is the part you've shown me...."
The power of Stubbs's singing is emphasised even more when fellow Top Lawrence Payton sings a more intimate third verse starting
"Now, I know they make you feel sad
make you feel so bad....."
as Stubbs's return to the lead is a heart crunching
"Girl I can understand how it might be kind of hard....."
Let's be honest, the Temptations were still the Temptations without David Ruffin or Eddie Kendricks, the Supremes had hits after the departure of Diana Ross, but Levi Stubbs WAS the sound of the Four Tops.
So when we salute Duke Fakir, we are also saluting Levi Stubbs, an often underrated performer who should be numbered among the very greatest soul singers of all time.
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