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Out of many, one great moment sums up Levi Stubbs
Levi Stubbs
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Published: October 23, 2008
The news came Friday: Levi Stubbs, the singer for The Four Tops, had died at age 72.
He hadn't performed since 2000. First cancer, then a stroke. Still, the announcement brought numbing sadness, then, surprisingly, a few tears.
The Tops found fame recording for Motown Records.
Part of the Tops' success were the vocal contributions of the late Lawrence Payton, the late Renaldo "Obie" Benson and Abdul "Duke" Fakir, all personable and inventive harmony singers.
But it was Stubbs' raw, disarmingly emotive delivery, mined from the shadows of love, that contrasted with the smooth Motown way. You could hear his heart and feel his pleading cries for understanding in every note he sang. Stubbs' ability to transform mere song into believeable humanity made the Tops special.
It certainly wasn't the group's dancing -- eight left feet and one spectacular voice.
There was nothing false about Stubbs. You could hear it in the unforgettable way he owned a song, exploring expressions of heart and soul until each song became a vital presentation, a pure and relatable distillation of the human experience.
When Billy Bragg, a British singer-songwriter, wrote a song called "Levi Stubbs' Tears," this is to what he was referring.
But for me, the genius of Stubbs' talent, the gamut of building tension toward unbridled, all-encompassing resolution, will forever be best conveyed by one word in one song.
"Bernadette."
The song was released in 1967, and it defies the wear and tear of time. It was tailored for Stubbs by Edward Holland, Lamont Dozier and Brian Holland, a Motown songwriting and production team. It never gets old. It never sounds old.
"Bernadette," contains The Moment -- Stubbs' utterance of three syllables that make up one of the most impassioned and almost operatically dramatic moments in soul music.
To these ears, it's the quintessential definition of soul.
It comes exactly 2 minutes, 44 seconds into the song. It lasts one second. The band, the Funk Brothers, has already built a repetitive groove -- part loping bass line, part stabbing instrumentation. Stubbs' has delivered a litany of considered emotional proclamations and philosophical summations -- declarations that border on obsession -- to Bernadette, the object of his devotion.
"In your arms, I find the kind of peace of mind the world is searching for," Stubbs sings. "But you, you give me the joy this heart of mine has always been longing for."
Stubbs speaks for all men in love, and he does so with a fearless vulnerability and raw passion that far too many men would never allow their loved one to see.
"Bernadette, I want you because I need you to live."
That phrase, early in the second verse, is when a standard love song hints at desperation, and in turn, brings an added twist of suspense.
The song progresses to The Moment, the band slowly building in intensity, the arrangement becoming almost unnoticeably more complex. Stubbs in turn starts to pepper his expressions of love with an undercurrent of desperation, even fear that borders on paranoia -- equal parts pleading and bravado.
"Some other men, they long to control you. But how can they control you, Bernadette, when they cannot control themselves, Bernadette, from wanting you, needing you?"
"But darling, you belong to me."
The music suddenly stops, not a climax, but intensity teetering on the brink. Silence. Stubbs is running at emotional overload. Then it floods out -- his obsessive love, his insecurity, his seductive logic, his paranoia, his tears -- in one desperate shout: "BERNADETTE."
It makes the soul spin.
In one word, Stubbs reaches into heart and soul and loosens, with the sort of honesty that almost makes you squirm, an explosion of fervent passion, pride, gratitude -- and fear.
It still sends shivers down my spine and takes my breath away.
In this song, Levi Stubb's tears will forever fall, a salty blue river of deep soul and love, never to be forgotten, never to be equaled.
If all Stubbs ever wanted was to be loved, well, he got his wish.
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