Still in Tops Form, but It’s Not the Same Old Song : Pop music: Despite a 41-year past, Levi Stubbs and his band mates, who play this weekend in Cerritos, look to the future.

The voice is that of a man in untold torment, pleading for relief even as he helplessly surrenders to his pain. The huge, booming baritone swoops and soars, melisma milking every syllable, terrifying bursts of half-shouted Angst weeping from the words like blood from an open wound.

Levi Stubbs, lead singer with the Four Tops, stood apart from most of his Motown label mates in the ‘60s. While the label featured such funky anomalies as the Contours and Junior Walker, Motown remains best known for producing slick, professional records by such Vegas-ready acts as the Supremes, the Temptations and the Miracles.

But while the Four Tops, who appear Friday and Saturday night in Cerritos, were one of Motown’s top hit-makers during the storied label’s heyday, Stubb’s melodramatic, pleading vocals came closer to the joyful noise produced by the Swan Silvertones, the Soul Stirrers and the Mighty Clouds of Joy--gospel groups Stubbs listened to as a teen-ager.

“Well, I’m rather loud and raw,” Stubbs acknowledged in a recent phone interview from his home in Detroit. “I don’t really even have a style; I just come by the way I sing naturally.

“I listened to everyone from Jackie Wilson to the Soul Stirrers back then, because everybody had something to offer. But I just do what I do. When I learn a song, I try to live it as best I can. But my sound has always been raw, there’s no question about that.”

This year the group is celebrating its 41st anniversary--that’s 41 years without a single breakup or personnel change.

Since Stubbs formed the group with childhood buddies Renaldo Benson, Abdul Fakir and Lawrence Payton in 1953, they’ve stayed together through good times and bad.

“There’s been some rough spots because we’re four different individuals and we’re all grown men,” said Stubbs, 57. “But the proof is in the pudding that we’re still here. I’m sure that if we got to the point where we couldn’t be around each other, then we wouldn’t be.

“But we don’t have that kind of a group. We grew up together, and we’ve been friends all our lives,” he said. “I’ve been with the Tops longer than I’ve been with my family, and that’s a long, long time.”

Indeed. His marriage has lasted 34 years, he has five children, and he’s never moved from his native Detroit.

“This is my home,” he said. “My mom and dad are buried here. I guess I’m just a sentimental old guy like that. All my nephews and nieces and grandchildren live here, too. Detroit’s been good to me, and I’ve never seen any reason to leave.”

Stubbs and company began singing together as the Four Aims, a jazz vocal quartet that backed the likes of Billy Eckstine, Count Basie and Della Reese. They also recorded a handful of singles on their own for the Chess, Red Top and Columbia labels, albeit without much commercial success. The group became the Four Tops in 1956 to avoid being confused with the then-popular country group, the Ames Brothers.

Signed to Motown in 1963, the Tops hit the following year with “Baby I Need Your Loving,” and in ’65 with the chart-topping “I Can’t Help Myself,” cheery pop-soul numbers that characterized the group’s early output.

“It’s the Same Old Song” and “Shake, Wake Me (When It’s Over)” followed in the same vein, before the revolutionary single that forever altered the group’s sound was released in 1966.

“Reach Out I’ll Be There” was a minor-key, soul-searing masterpiece featuring a strange and unique blend of flutes, oboes and Arabic percussion, with Stubbs’ hauntingly impassioned lead vocal in full cry.

It topped the charts in the U.S. and Britain for two and three weeks respectively, this during the heyday of British rock.

A series of similar-sounding singles designed to capitalize on the success of “Reach Out” followed, but if the attempt to cash in was obvious, such songs as “Standing in the Shadows of Love,” “7 Rooms of Gloom” and, particularly, the almost frighteningly intense “Bernadette,” were no mere knock-offs. Each release was a highly musical mini-drama that showcased Stubbs’ fervent brand of soul shouting to great effect.

The Tops remained a hit-producing attraction for Motown into the next decade, but by 1973 it was time to move on.

“Motown had such a terrific roster, it was getting rather difficult to (stand out),” said Stubbs. Leaving the label that brought them fame, the Four Tops signed with ABC Records.

The early ‘70s were almost as fruitful as the Motown era for the Tops, who adapted their sound to keep up with the smoother grooves of vocals groups like the Chi-Lites, the Spinners and the O’Jays. “Keeper of the Castle,” “Ain’t No Woman (Like the One I’ve Got)” and “Are You Man Enough” all scored Top 20 hits for the veteran quartet.

But in recent years, the Four Tops have been mostly playing the oldies circuit, as changing tastes have left their brand of vocal excellence a relic of a bygone time in R & B history.

Too, Stubbs has kept busy with voice work in movies and television, including his celebrated performance as the voice of the man-eating plant, Audrey II, in the 1986 film “Little Shop of Horrors.”

The Four Tops’ induction into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 would have helped to soothe many a performer’s bruised ego, but Stubbs harbors no sense of abandonment, nor does he indulge in nostalgia for the old days.

“I’m not concerned with any of that, the accolades or the past,” he said. “You do what you do, and you do the best you can. I’ve been very fortunate in my career, and I’ll live with that.”

Perhaps Stubbs has good reason not to look backward, as he revealed future plans which, with a bit of luck, could bring things full circle for the Four Tops.

“We’re about to sign back up with Motown,” he said. “We’ve got Norman Whitfield (writer-producer of many of Motown’s biggest hits) working with us. He’s got some absolutely terrific stuff. We’re still going to be the Tops and do what we do best, but it’ll be newer material. We’re going to try to produce hit records again.”

* The Four Tops and the Fifth Dimension appear tonight and Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 12700 Center Court Drive, Cerritos. $30 to $42. (310) 916-8500.