“Ain’t No Woman (Like the One I’ve Got)” (The Four Tops)

Today’s classic song of the day is by a legendary Motown group after they left the Motown label. The song is “Ain’t No Woman (Like the One I’ve Got)” and the group is the Four Tops. This single was released on the ABC/Dunhill label in in January of 1973. It proved that the Tops could be successful without Berry Gordy, peaking at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100, #2 on Billboard’s R&B chart, and #1 on the Cash BoxTop 100.

This single sounded different from the group’s previous tracks for Motown, for a number of reasons. First, they weren’t backed by the Funk Brothers, and that matters; the arrangement were slicker and the new studio musicians were good, but it wasn’t quite the same mojo. The result was a smoother, less driving sound than on their Motown hits. Second, the group passed the lead vocals around more. In their Motown years, Levi Stubbs handled the lead almost exclusively; on this and other ABC/Dunhill tracks, the boys each had their own lines in the chorus. You still got a lot of Levi in the verses but you got to hear the other guys, too. (In case you’re wondering, the order in the chorus goes Lawrence, Obie, and Duke, with Levi bringing it home.)

“Ain’t No Woman (Like the One I’ve Got)” was written by the team of Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter and produced by Lambert. That team wrote and produced a ton of hits for the ABC/Dunhill label in the 1970s, including yesterday’s classic song of the day, “Don’t Pull Your Love” by Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds. They also crafted a string of post-Motown hits for the Four Tops, including “Keeper of the Castle” (#10 in 1972), “Are You Man Enough” (#15, 1973), and “Sweet Understanding Love” (#33, 1973).

The Tops (Levi Stubbs, Obie Benson, Lawrence Payton, and Duke Fakir) left Motown in 1972 after Berry Gordy moved the label’s operations from Detroit to Los Angeles and started neglecting many of its older acts in favor of new artists, such as the Jackson 5 and a newly solo Diana Ross. ABC/Dunhill quickly snapped up the group and assigned them to writer/producers Lambert and Potter and the label’s chief producer and head of A&R, Steve Barri.

While the Four Tops saw initial success with the Barri/Lambert/Potter team (“Keeper of the Castle” was their first Top 10 hit since “Bernadette” in 1967), the hits eventually dried up and they left ABC/Dunhill in 1983, rejoining the Motown label. They stayed there for a few years and had a few minor hits on the R&B charts, but left again in 1987 to sign with Arista Records, where they had another mainstream hit with 1988’s “Indestructible” (#35 on the Hot 100). That was about it for the group’s recording career, although they continued to perform live, even after the deaths of three of the four founding members. (Duke Fakir, now 88, is the only surviving member and still sings with a bunch of replacements as the Four Tops.)