It's hard to think of the Four Tops without thinking of my dad. He was a Temps and Tops kind of guy. I don't think he played favorites between the two, as I recall each getting equal play among the cassettes he carried with him for car rides upstate (it's hard to believe he didn't wear out the Temptations 'N' and Four Tops set he bought through the mail). But I do know that he bought a signed 8X10 of the Four Tops one of the times he saw them (was it at the Friar Tuck Inn upstate?), the only autograph I ever knew my dad to own.
So when I heard Levi Stubbs died, I thought of my dad. And car rides with those tapes (and, in the years before we made that great leap to a car that could play tapes, WCBS FM). And my dad singing in a voice that didn't quite match Mr. Stubbs'. And I was sad. And happy. Because it's like that sometimes.
Levi Stubbs knew that.
Rest in peace, Levi.
1 comment:
I was sad, too. But then I thought of dad's rickety Walk Man...and how he wouldn't know how loud he was "singing" (and let's just put that in quotes) with it on. And then I got very happy...almost pee my pants happy.
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