Abdul ‘Duke’ Fakir, last of the original Four Tops, is dead at 88

By HILLEL ITALIE

NEW YORK (AP) — Abdul “Duke” Fakir, the last surviving original member of the beloved Motown group the Four Tops that was known for such hits as “Reach Out, I’ll Be There” and “Standing in the Shadows of Love,” has died at age 88.

Fakir died Monday of heart failure, according to a family spokesperson, with his wife and other loved ones by his side.

The Four Tops were among Motown’s most popular and enduring acts, and peaked in the 1960s. Between 1964 and 1967, they had 11 top 20 hits and two No. 1’s: “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)” and the operatic classic “Reach Out I’ll Be There.” Other songs, often sagas of romantic pain and bereavement, included “Baby I Need Your Loving,” “Standing in the Shadows of Love,” “Bernadette” and “Just Ask the Lonely.”

Many of Motown’s greatest stars, from the Supremes to Stevie Wonder, came of age at the Detroit-based company founded by Berry Gordy in the late 1950s. But Fakir, lead singer Levi Stubbs, Renaldo “Obie” Benson and Lawrence Payton had been together for a decade when Gordy signed them up in 1963 (after the group had turned him a few years earlier) and they already had a polished stage act and versatile vocal style that enabled them to perform anything from country songs to pop standards like “Paper Doll.”

They called themselves the Four Aims when they started out, but soon renamed themselves the Four Tops to avoid confusion with the white harmony quartet the Ames Brothers.

The Tops had recorded for several labels, including the famed Chess Records in Chicago, with little commercial success. But Gordy and A&R man Mickey Stevenson paired them with the songwriting-production team of Eddie Holland, Lamont Dozier and Brian Holland and they quickly caught on, blending tight, haunting harmonies (with Fakir as lead tenor) behind Stubbs’ urgent, sometimes desperate baritone.