“Duke was first tenor — smooth, suave, and always sharp,” Motown founder Berry Gordy said. “For 70 years, he kept the Four Tops’ remarkable legacy intact.”
FILE – Duke Fakir holds his life time achievement award backstage at the 51st Annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles on Feb. 8, 2009. Fakir wrote a memoir, “I’ll Be There: My Life With The Four Tops.” 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.
FILE- The Four Tops, from left, Renaldo “Obie” Benson; Levi Stubbs; Abdul “Duke” Fakir, and Lawrence Payton appear in New York after they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Fakir, the last of the original Four Tops, died Monday of heart failure at age 88. 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.
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, dissension and personnel changes, the Four Tops remained united and intact until Payton died in 1997. .
“As each one of them passed a little bit of me left with them,” Fakir told UK Music Reviews in 2021. “When Levi left us, I found myself in a quandary as to what I was going to do from that moment on but after a while I realized that the name together with the legacy that they had left us simply had to carry on, and judging by the audience reaction it soon became pretty evident that I did the right thing and I really do feel good about that.
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