First I Look at the Purse has also been covered by David Bromberg, Rod Stewart, Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, The Cortinas and Nashville Pussy. "First I Look at the Purse" was the last Contours hit featuring original lead Billy Gordon. It also features the renewed line-up of Contours, as several original members had left back in 1964. Shortly after its release, Gordon departed the group, and Motown, for good, due to personal problems. He was replaced with Joe Stubbs, brother of lead singer of fellow Motown group The Four Tops, Levi Stubbs. In the early 2000s, the Contours performed the song on the
John Stubbs (Quaker) John Stubbs (Quaker) John Stubbs (c.1618–1675) was an itinerant English Quaker minister and author who engaged in a well-known debate with Roger Williams in Rhode Island. Stubbs had received a liberal education and was fluent in several languages, including Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. Stubbs served as a soldier in Cromwell's army and was stationed in the Carlisle garrison where George Fox was imprisoned in 1653 and Fox converted Stubbs to the Quaker beliefs. Stubbs refused to take an oath of fidelity to Cromwell in 1654 as against his Quaker beliefs, so he left the army that year. In Lancashire in