Surely one of the greatest male soul voices ever... just ask the lonely, bernadette, wow what a singer!

Aged 70.

Very sad. Another one of those deaths where I had to do a double take for the headline to sink in.

For my money, The Four Tops were - alongside The Temptations - the finest group to come out of Motown. A stunning legacy of hit singles with so much soul and power packed into just one record than artistes manage in their entire career.

I hate to try and imagine what life would had been like without Motown. OK, I was born in 1972 but everyone I've spoken to who lived through the 60s and early 70s all say that Motown was what you danced to and it always packed the dancefloors.

We'll certainly never see a band of their like again.

Dear Sun; see you picked up this story from here yesterday. You're welcome.

PS Peter Kay is getting next year's Brits Outstanding Contribution.

Is it true that you are running for parliament next year JK?

Pop question - who had the biggest UK hit with the Four Tops second US hit It's The Same Old Song?

That would be you then! Know it well.Quite a strange version actually, I`m just running both versions through my head as I type and they actually don`t equate to each other, one is a pop song, one is a soul record.
I`m trying to think of the Four Tops song from about 1971, in which the lyrics really moved me as a kid.
An odd story, I had been ill and unconscious for quite a while and woke up in Chertsey Hospital and it was the first thing that I heard and probably the first time, I thought "we`re all doomed!"

Title anyone? There`s your next question.

Correct Mart; under the name The Weathermen (suggested to me by my friend Phil Ochs) - top 20 in 1971.

The Tops only made 34.

As for the end of the world - no idea!

I googled it, check this out, it still gave me the same goosebumps.
Fanbloodytastic tune.

The two Four Tops hits in 1971 were
'Just seven numbers (can straighten out my life)'
and
'Simple Game'

In late 1970 they had one called 'Still Water'.

Of course, there could be others which didn't make the chart.

Ah yes, Simple Game; which I always thought owed a lot to the Temptations.

The one I had forgotten - Just Ask The Lonely - is stunning too.

The thing is with "Tops" and the Temptations they really did crossover music before anyone thought about it.

When I grew up, there were no different races in my local area, or schools etc and then we were delivered music from both of these bands,via Radio 1, plus Ike and Tina etc and they were simply formats of playing/singing that we could not understand, but the Tamla etc people made us "hicks from the sticks" get it, quite simply.

And can you believe, listening to this, it was never a UK hit?

Totally brilliant, timeless classic track.