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Fakir died Monday of heart failure at his home in Detroit, according to a family spokesperson, with his wife and other loved ones by his side. The Four Tops were among Motown's most popular and ...
Abdul “Duke” Fakir, a founding member of the Motown group the Four Tops, has died, according to his family. He was 88. Fakir died of heart failure in Detroit on Monday, surrounded by his wife ...
Abdul "Duke" Fakir, the last founding member of the Four Tops, has died. He was 88.Fakir died of heart failure surrounded by his wife and loved ones early Monday in Detroit, Michigan, according to ...
Fakir was born on December 26, 1935, in Detroit, Michigan. His father was a factory worker who came from what is now Bangladesh. [1] His mother was an African American from Sparta, Georgia. [2] [3] Fakir attended Detroit's Pershing High School, [4] where he played basketball and football, and ran track. [5]
All four members of the group began their careers together while they were high-school students in Detroit.At the insistence of their friends, Pershing High students Levi Stubbs and Abdul "Duke" Fakir performed with Renaldo "Obie" Benson and Lawrence Payton from Northern High at a local birthday party.
Stubbs attended Detroit Pershing High School, where he met Abdul "Duke" Fakir. [3] He began his professional singing career with friends Fakir, Renaldo "Obie" Benson and Lawrence Payton, forming a singing group called the Four Aims in 1954. [4] Two years later, after signing with Chess Records, the group changed their name to the Four Tops.
Fakir was married twice, for the last 50 years to Piper Gibson, and had seven children. (Six survive him). In the mid-1960s, he was briefly engaged to Mary Wilson of the Supremes.
The group was founded in 1961 by Bertha Barbee-McNeal (June 12, 1940 – December 15, 2022) [3] and Mildred Gill Arbor, students at Western Michigan University. [1] Mildred recruited her younger sister Carolyn (also known as Cal or Caldin), who was in 9th grade, and Cal's friend Betty Kelly, a junior in high school.