Abdul “Duke” Fakir, the last surviving original member of the Four Tops who sang on many of the group’s timeless hits of the Motown era, including “Reach Out I’ll Be There,” “Standing in the Shadows of Love,” and “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch),” died Monday of heart failure. He was 88. A family spokesperson confirmed the singer’s death to the Associated Press, citing the cause as heart failure.
Fakir formed the quartet that became the Four Tops alongside friends Levi Stubbs, Renaldo “Obie” Benson and Lawrence Payton when they were students at Detroit’s Pershing High School in 1953. The original lineup of the Four Tops held together until 1997 when Peyton died of liver cancer. Following the death of Benson in 2005 and Stubbs in 2008, the responsibility for keeping the Four Tops name alive fell on Fakir and a new group of vocalists he recruited.
Fakir continued to tour with the group until medical issues sidelined him late last year. “I’m not going to ever retire,” Fakir wrote in his 2022 memoir I’ll Be There: My Life With The Four Tops. “The Lord can retire me, but I’m not going to into the dark night quietly. I know I’m not in the fourth quarter anymore. I’m in overtime.”
The majority of the Four Tops lead vocals were handled by Stubbs, but Fakir’s voice played a critical role in the creation of their harmonies. He also helped keep peace in the band when relations frayed. “We were four totally different guys,” he wrote in his memoir. “But we had a love for the same thing, and that’s basically the whole story. Four guys from Detroit who came together because of our love of music, love of entertaining, and love of each other.”
They reached the zenith of their success in the mid-1960s when songs like “Baby I Need Your Loving,” “It’s the Same Old Song,” and “Bernadette” were blaring out of radios all across America. But they continued to record albums throughout the Seventies, scoring occasional hits like “MacArthur Park (Part II),” “Ain’t No Woman (Like the One I’ve Got),” and “Keeper of the Castle.” In the years that followed, most of their energy moved to touring on the lucrative oldies circuit.
“People ask me if I ever get tired singing our hit records,” Fakir wrote in his book. “I say, ‘Fuck naw.’ Every night’s a different audience, every night it’s a different love, a different respect. I look in people’s eyes, and as long as I see that respect, that thank you, I’ll sing that mothefucker until the day I die.”
This story is developing
From Rolling Stone US
