Abdul “Duke” Fakir, the last surviving original member of the Motown group the Four Tops, has died aged 88 of heart failure.
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 number ones: 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.
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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 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.
They reached the top 20 for the last time in the early 1980s, with the sentimental ballad When She Was My Girl.
Throughout, they remained a busy concert act and at times toured with latter day members of the Temptations, a friendly rivalry launched when the groups performed together at the all-star 1983 television concert marking Motown’s 25th anniversary.
While the Temptations and other peers suffered from drug problems, internal dissension and personnel changes, the Four Tops remained united and intact until Payton died in 1997. Benson died in 2005 and Stubbs in 2008.
“The things I love about them the most – they are very professional, they have fun with what they do, they are very loving, they have always been gentlemen,” Wonder said of them when he helped induct them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.
Fakir later toured as the Four Tops with lead vocalist Alexander Morris, Ronnie McNeir and Lawrence “Roquel” Payton Jr, the son of Lawrence Payton.
More recently, Fakir was working on a planned Broadway musical based on their lives and completed the memoir I’ll Be There, published in 2022.
Fakir was married twice, most recently to Piper Gibson, and had five children. In the mid-1960s, he was briefly engaged to Mary Wilson of the Supremes.
A lifelong Detroit resident, Fakir was of Ethiopian and Bangladeshi descent and grew up in a rough neighbourhood where rival black and white gangs fought often. He had early dreams of being a professional athlete, but was also a talented singer whose tenor brought him attention as a performer in his church choir.
Fakir died with his wife and loved ones by his side.