The year that formed my musical tastes was 1964. Maybe 1965 was a better year for overall quality of pop music, but in 1964 I was fifteen and the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan, and we had surf music and the folk revival and Motown. The Supremes were all over the charts that year, and it was the first time I heard The Four Tops sing “Baby, I Need Your Loving.” And every time I hear the smooth passion in the voice of Levi Stubbs singing lead on that song, I’m fifteen again.

So I felt a pang of sadness when I heard this morning that Levi Stubbs had died. I remember Edie Adams and Jack Narz, both of whom also died this week, from my childhood, but they were just people on TV to me. I can remember the first time I heard Levi’s voice, at an impressionable time in my life. It’s almost as if he, along with Frankie Valli and Mama Cass and Johnny Rivers and Petula Clark and John Sebastian, was singing me along the path to adulthood.

Every time we lose one of them, I lose a bit of what made me who I am. Thank goodness the music never dies, which is why I spend so much time listening to the sixties station on satellite radio. (Which is where I heard about Levi’s death, by the way.)

I almost saw Levi and the Tops live about twenty years ago. We had tickets, and we were on our way to the concert when we learned that they had to cancel. I think it was a health problem at the time, but I’m afraid we didn’t have much sympathy. Of course, I was twenty years younger then. I understand a little more now.