I awoke this Friday morning with a metaphorical spring in my step – I had a day’s leave from work.  My mood quickly slumped when I realised today was also my 37th birthday.  To cheer myself up I dragged my Motown t-shirt over my head.

Pottered around, did a bit of this and that, had a relaxing and nice enough day, went to the movies this afternoon with the Minster’s Wife.  Saw Burn After Reading - not one of the Coens’ finest but watchable enough and funny in places.  (And incidentally “Pete” Bradshaw, your comment “Exasperatingly, the fundamental plot-point of how Cox’s CD finds its way into the gym is fudged” is complete bollocks.  It slipped from Cox’s wife’s lawyer’s secretary’s gymbag – there was a whole scene about it.  Duh!  You get paid to watch movies: why don’t you actually watch them, dipshit?)

Got home, switched on the 6pm Radio 4 news to learn that Levi Stubbs, the lead singer of The Four Tops, died in his sleep this morning at his home in Detroit.

Now it’s obviously not up there with the loss of a family member but it’s taken the edge off this particular birthday, I can tell you.

I still don’t really know what I want to say, except that for me Levi Stubbs stands with Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye and Aretha Franklin as one of the four definitive soul voices.

There are many other phenomenal singers who play a large part in my life, but those are the four to whom I have returned time and again in my 37 years and 18 hours on the planet to date.  Whatever else I may regret about my words, thoughts and deeds over that time, I don’t regret a single second spent listening to those four singers.

Perhaps I just want to say what I hope someone will say about me when I’m no longer here: thank you, Mr. Stubbs – your life has made my life a better experience.

The Four Tops in 1966
(L to R: Abdul Fakir, Levi Stubbs, Lawrence Payton and Renaldo Benson)