reach out i'll be there

Forty five years ago, the Four Tops mixed classical and gospel to achieve their greatest success with what would become their signature song. Written by Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Edward Holland, Jr., 'Reach Out I'll Be There' saw the Motown songwriting team experimenting with their hitmaking formula. "Up until then, most of the songs basically had three chords," says Dozier. "They were very simple and, in a sense, very rock & roll, but I think the experiment of putting classical and gospel together reached full force on 'Reach Out I'll Be There'. I mean, so many people have tried to define the 'Motown Sound', and if it's anything, it's gospel and classical merging together. I was raised on that music, it's all we ever heard in our house. My grandmother wouldn't allow anything else — unless it was Tony Bennett or Nat 'King' Cole or Frank Sinatra — and so I had this stuff ingrained in me. At the same time, being indoctrinated into the gospel way of thinking, I wound up being a lead singer at church. A good friend of mine, Aretha Franklin, was there, and a lot of influences were around. So, the 'Motown Sound' definitely had those elements in it, and if you listen to the chords of 'Reach Out I'll Be There' there are very intricate patterns. To my knowledge, those structures had never been explored before, and on that song we were reaching out for different sounds and approaches. To start with, there was the Russian-type intro — it was almost gypsy-like, mixed in with a little Russian theme, summoning up images of the Cossacks. It was Brian who was responsible for that. He came into the office one day and was kind of searching around on the piano until he came up with this little melody. He kept playing it over and over and over, but he couldn't find any other place to go with it. Then something came over me, so I sat next to him — as we'd often do — at the piano and I just went into left field with a totally different feel, a gospel feel: 'Now if you feel that you can't go on...' A real hallelujah jump-and-shout type of thing. The two different parts seemed to match, creating an excitement and a collaboration of sounds and feelings that we'd never heard before. When one of us appeared to exhaust what we were feeling, the other would take over and improvise until the whole thing was completed. The chorus featured a little bit of both of us, changing chords and adding progressions, and in the end the song came together and really wrote itself in a lot of respects. Brian and I were like two scientists in a laboratory, mixing different concoctions to see what fitted and what sounded best, and it was just unusual that everything fell into place like that. Usually, I would have an idea for the lyrics, or a title, and I would give that to Eddie to continue, but in this case there was nothing, and so he and I fooled around together on the words. I gave him little pieces, he came up with the title, and when the song was completed Eddie then sang it to Levi Stubbs to give him direction in terms of the feeling and the performance. Originally, Brian and I had just been searching for a new song and didn't have a particular artist in mind, but once it reached a certain point we knew it was for Levi. And so, after I arranged the background vocals, I'd give him some of the nuances and then he would take it from there."

Levi Stubbs performed the vocal singing and shouting in a gospel style with the rest of the Tops, Abdul "Duke" Fakir, Renaldo "Obie" Benson, Lawrence Payton singing backup. The music was played by Motown's revolving door house band, the Funk Brothers, which at the time included bandleader and pianist Earl Van Dyke, keyboard player Johnny Griffith, guitarists Joe Messina, Robert White and Eddie Willis, bass players James Jamerson and Tony Newton, percussionists Jack Ashford, Jack Brokensha and Eddie 'Bongo' Brown, along with drummers Uriel Jones, William 'Benny' Benjamin and Richard 'Pistol' Allen. Additional background vocals were provided by the Adantes: Jackie Hicks, Marlene Barrow and Louvain Demps. The song was recorded in two takes and forgotten by the band as a throwaway album track. They were suprised when Berry Gordy decided to release it as single. It reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, R&B chart, and their only number one on the UK pop chart.

Now if you feel that you can't go on

Because all your hope is gone

And your life is filled with confusion

And happiness is just an illusion

And your world around is tumblin' down

Darling, reach out

Reach out, for me.

I'll be there to love and confort you...(tell me baby)

I'll be there with the love I'll see you through

Now when you're lost and about to give up

'cause your best just ain't good enough

And you feel the world has grown cold

And you're driftin' on your own

When you need a hand to hold

Darling, reach out

Reach out, for me.

I'll be there to love and confort you

I'll be there with the love I'll see you through

I'll be there to love and confort you

I'll be there to with the love I'll see you through

I can tell you the way I hang your head

Now with out of love , now you're afraid

And through your tears you look around

But there's no peace of mind to be found

I know what you're thinking

Witout love, now you're alone

Baby, reach out

Reach out for me

I'll be there to love and confort you

I'll be there with the Love I'll see you through

I'll be there to love and confort you ...(tell me baby)

I'll be there to always see you through...(i'll be there)

I'll be there to love and confort you

I'll be there with the love I'll see you through.