'Reach Out' – Registered
SPIRITUAL GLORY IN THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
If you have ever been lonely, if you have any soul or any heart at all, you must go out and buy this record now. After you have heard it, you will never need to listen to another record for as long as you live.
The record, of course, is “Reach Out I’ll Be There” by the Four Tops.
The words above were those of much-loved British music journalist Penny Valentine in reviewing (for music paper Disc & Music Echo) Tamla Motown TMG 579 upon its U.K. release on Friday, October 7, 1966. The next evening, I heard it myself for the first time, while speeding across the Severn Bridge between England and Wales. I asked – no, commanded – the car’s driver to pull over. My best friend knew better than to argue when it came to the arrival of new music from Motown. We stopped, and I understood why Penny wrote what she did.
The Severn Bridge is three thousand miles from the Library of Congress, where, on April 13, “Reach Out I’ll Be There” was inducted into the National Recording Registry. It’s also quite a distance from Waltham, Massachusetts, where another Motown fan underwent a similar experience to mine during that autumn of ’66. Of that, more later.
The Four Tops’ signature work is the seventh Motown release to be added to the Registry since such inductions began 20 years ago. The first, in 2003, was Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On (the album), followed two years later by Stevie Wonder’s Songs In The Key of Life. The next four selections were all 45s: Martha & the Vandellas’ “Dancing In The Street” (2005), the Miracles’ “The Tracks Of My Tears” (2007), the Supremes’ “Where Did Our Love Go” (2015) and the Temptations’ “My Girl” (2017).
A piece of history once issued as a Motown long-player, Dr. Martin Luther King’s 1963 “I Have A Dream” speech, is also in the National Recording Registry. Another induction sure to have Berry Gordy’s approval is the 1938 radio broadcast of Joe Louis’ heavyweight boxing triumph over Max Schmeling – a significant childhood memory for the Motown founder. He later wrote that it was the moment “a fire started deep inside me; a burning desire to be special, to win, to be somebody.”
What other Motown milestones should be added to the world’s largest library? How about the Marvelettes’ “Please Mr. Postman,” Little Stevie Wonder’s “Fingertips – Pt. 2,” Mary Wells’ “My Guy,” Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” and the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back”? But perhaps that’s a separate conversation. For the moment, let’s reflect a little longer on the life-changing levitation that is “Reach Out I’ll Be There,” and call upon the words of others. There are plenty from which to choose…
“I happened to be in the room when Brian and Lamont wrote ‘Reach Out I’ll Be There.’ We were in the office upstairs. Brian was sitting at the piano, playing around, and Lamont and I both liked what he was doing. It sounded different. All of a sudden, like a bat out of hell, Lamont jumped onto the piano stool next to Brian, pushed him out of the way, and started playing the chords to what would become the verse – ‘And if it feels like you can’t go on…’ ” Eddie Holland, Come and Get These Memories, Omnibus Press, 2019
After an un-Motown like opening (with gallop-pace electronic plucking), this suddenly erupts into the sound with which we’re all familiar. The vocal is taken by the group’s throaty, rich-voiced soloist, embellished by the well-known slurping chanting. Tuneful, with a terrific beat, it’s intense and spirited. Derek Johnson, New Musical Express, 1966
“For some reason, I was thinking about the way Bob Dylan phrased the verses on his song ‘Like A Rolling Stone,’ which provided inspiration for the feel of ‘Reach Out I’ll Be There.’ That was another song where we raised the key to get Levi Stubbs singing with that pleading gospel shout, and it’s another of our records that I’m particularly proud of today.” Lamont Dozier, How Sweet It Is, BMG Books, 2019
“Levi was uncomfortable at first. He said, ‘I’m a singer. I don’t talk or shout.’ But we worked on it for a couple of hours, recording it in pieces, talking part after talking part. The lyrics were ostensibly about a guy telling his girl he’ll be there for her in her darkest moments. To me, it felt like a chant, almost religious – a song of hope for the world.” Duke Fakir of the Four Tops, The Guardian, 2014
The Tops rehearse with Cholly Atkins, 1964
Tomorrow, walk into your local record shop and buy this record. The manager will see it sitting on his record shelves with a golden halo hovering around it. It’s the record the Four Tops, the Motown Record Corporation and everybody concerned in producing it, have been leading up to. A Motown climax like this should be put at the top of the chart in no time at all. It pounds, swells, drifts, surges, dips, then thunders onward like a stadium full of people singing into the sky.” Melody Maker, 1966
“Lamont and I decided to add a piccolo and flute in the intro. The piccolo’s piercing sound was essential, It’s like a siren and gets your attention right away. It’s also the sound of a heart crying. A flute alone would have been too warm and comforting.” Paul Riser, The Wall Street Journal, 2013
“The most difficult we ever did was ‘Reach Out,’ because that was something of an experiment. I think it took about one hour, 45 minutes before we were happy, but that mostly was because we had flutes and oboes and Arab-type drums all going in there together.” Brian Holland, New Musical Express, 1967
There are only a couple of hints of spontaneity in what Stubbs does, and even those may be part of the plan: a ‘hah!’ at the end of the first verse seems just a nervous tic, until it’s reiterated more forcefully at the end of the record. But like a great preacher who can make merely reading the gospel a creative act, Stubbs masterfully interacts with his text – one of the great things about the single is hearing him start to sing a (probably, or at least possibly, unplanned) ‘Don’t worry!’ just before the needle lifts off.” Dave Marsh, The Heart of Rock & Soul, Plume Books, 1989
“The hoof-beat drum pattern that follows was made using timpani mallets on the plastic head of a tambourine without its little metal cymbals. That sounded like a heartbeat speeding up and raised anticipation. All of these things were used to set the mood. Then the Andantes were added so there were female voices echoing Levi’s lines. I also added strings to the song’s chorus using classical chord inversions – different intervals between the bass notes – to widen the sound.” Paul Riser, The Wall Street Journal, 2013
“After we mixed a song, we would go back and play it through a small speaker, to make sure it sounded like [it was being played through] a car radio. That was the most important thing because, at that time, people were always in cars. If it sounded good through a small speaker, it would be more like a radio.” Brian Holland, Heaven Must Have Sent You: The Holland/Dozier/Holland Story, Hip-O/Motown, 2005
One of the most saleable of Tamla outfits, the boys here have a distinctive instrumental sound early on, before it settles down into a typical Tamla sound. It’s a violent sort of song, fast-paced, strong words. A hit. Record Retailer, 1966
“Being in the studio with the Tops was always a great experience. With most of the other artists we worked with, things were strictly professional. They’d come in and do their thing, and then we’d all go on with our lives. I was never one to hang out or socialize much because I was too busy working. The Four Tops managed to find a way to combine work with fun.” Lamont Dozier, How Sweet It Is, BMG Books, 2019
And what of that other person who remembered when he was first dazzled by “Reach Out I’ll Be There”? It was music critic Jon Landau, writing in Boston-area “alternative” weekly The Real Paper in May 1974: “One September, I was driving through Waltham, looking for a new apartment when the sound on the car radio stunned me. I pulled over to the side of the road, turned it up, demanded silence of friends and two minutes and 56 seconds later knew that God had spoken to me through the Four Tops’ ‘Reach Out I’ll Be There,’ a record that I will cherish for as long as I live.
(Later in that same article, Landau wrote for the first time about Bruce Springsteen, referring to him as “rock & roll’s future” – a prediction which eventually led him to manage Springsteen and co-produce his landmark album, Born To Run.)
Sixteen years on, when a better-known Landau was among those inducting Holland/Dozier/Holland into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, he once more recalled, “I was driving down Route 128 outside of Boston and listening to WRKO, our great ’60s era Boston Top 40 [station]. ‘Reach Out’ came on for the first time and 30 seconds into it, I pulled over to the shoulder of the highway, and just listened – losing myself in Levi’s performance, with all of its hair raising and spiritual glory. For me, time stood still, and I will always remember that moment the same way that I remember hearing ‘Johnny B. Goode’ and ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ for the first time.”
Four Tops forever, then.
Book notes: the story of “Reach Out I’ll Be There” will be reprised next month in Duke Fakir’s memoir, entitled – what else? – I’ll Be There, and written with Kathleen McGhee-Anderson. (Duke embarked on a similar effort with author Peter Knobler some years ago, but it didn’t come to pass.) The Tops’ mightiest hit will, of course, figure in the stage musical about their life and times, also dubbed I’ll Be There. This is expected later in the year, with a prospective Broadway run preceded by a debut in Detroit. In the meantime, here’s an earlier West Grand playlist of relevance, and a link to a Tops’ performance on The Ed Sullivan Show.