The 5th Dimension is a popular music vocal group from the United States whose repertoire encompasses pop, R&B, soul, jazz, light opera, and Broadwaya mix dubbed “champagne soul.”
The group began as the Versatiles in late 1965, but by 1966 had changed its name to “the 5th Dimension.” They had 20 Top 40 successes on Billboard’s Hot 100 between 1967 and 1973, two of which earned Grammy Awards for Record of the Year: “Up, Up and Away” (no. 7, 1967) and “Medley: Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In (The Flesh Failures)” (no. 1, 1969). “Stoned Soul Picnic” (no. 3), “Wedding Bell Blues” (no. 1), “One Less Bell to Answer” (no. 2), “Never My Love” (pop no. 12/Easy Listening no. 1), “(Last Night) I Didn’t Get to Sleep at All”, (no. 8) and “If I Could Reach You” (pop no. 10/Easy Listening no. 1). Three of their albums charted in Billboard’s Rhythm & Blues/Soul Top Ten. On the Easy Listening list, five of their 19 Top 20 hits reached number one.
Lamonte McLemore, Marilyn McCoo, Florence LaRue, Ronald Townson, and Billy Davis Jr. were the initial members. Their first records were released on the Soul City record label, which was founded by Johnny Rivers, a recording artist. The band went on to record for Bell/Arista Records, ABC Records, and Motown Records, among others.
Some of the 5th Dimension’s songwriters went on to have successful careers of their own, including Ashford & Simpson, who wrote the song “California Soul.” The trio is also known for having more success with Laura Nyro’s songs than Nyro had with her own, especially with “Stoned Soul Picnic,” “Sweet Blindness,” “Wedding Bell Blues,” “Blowin’ Away,” and “Save the Country.” Burt Bacharach and Hal David (“One Less Bell to Answer”), as well as Jimmy Webb, who wrote “Up, Up and Away,” were among the songwriters who contributed to the album. All bar one song on the group’s 1967 LP The Magic Garden was written by Webb.
For their recording sessions, Bones Howe hired Bob Alcivar as the singers’ vocal arranger, as well as instrumental support from the Wrecking Crew.
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Did the members of the Fifth Dimension write their own music?
One of the most prominent singing groups of the 1960s, the Fifth Dimension, is featured in our Top 10 Fifth Dimension Songs list. The Fifth Dimension were a band known for their fantastic cover versions of popular songs by a wide range of musicians and authors. Laura Nyro was responsible for several of the group’s hits. In 1965, Billy Davis Jr., Florence La Rue, Marilyn McCoo, Lamonte McLemore, and Ronald Townson created The Versatiles, a vocal group comprised of five talented singers. The group’s name was eventually changed to the Fifth Dimension. The Fifth Dimension’s first big success, “Up Up and Away,” was written by Jimmy Webb, a teenage songwriter who would go on to become one of the most iconic songwriters of all time.
What is the 5th Dimension, and what does it mean?
In physics and mathematics, the fifth dimension is a micro-dimension that is accepted. It’s here to create a pleasant and seamless connection between gravity and electromagnetism, or the two main fundamental forces, which appear to be unrelated in ordinary four-dimensional spacetime.
From which musical did the song Aquarius originate?
It’s a huge accomplishment for a song to reach No. 1 on the Billboard charts, let alone stay there for six weeks in a row. This was accomplished fifty years ago by the 5th Dimension’s song “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In.” It debuted on the Top 40 chart on March 15, 1969, and stayed at No. 1 for 16 weeks, reaching No. 1 in April.
Serendipity provided the inspiration for the song. The 5th Dimension’s main singer, Billy Davis Jr., forgot his wallet in a cab in New York City. It was discovered by a worker who was working on the musical “Hair.” He invited the group to witness the show, during which they heard “Aquarius,” a piece of music. They contacted Bones Howe, a music producer and engineer, who took two pieces of music from “Hair” and “jammed them together like two trains,” according to Howe.
Marilyn McCoo, Florence LaRue, Billy Davis Jr., Lamont McLemore, and Ron Towson formed the 5th Dimension in Los Angeles in 1966. They scored seven Top 40 successes before “Aquarius,” the biggest of which were “Up, Up and Away” and “Stoned Soul Picnic.” The group had a total of 20 Top-40 successes between 1967 and 1973, when it was at its peak.
The song’s lyrics were based on astrology. The song predicted that a new “Age of Aquarius” will come sometime after the twentieth century, while astrologers disagreed on the exact year. Unlike the current “Age of Pisces,” this age was to be marked by love, light, and humanistic, gentle connections.
The single version lasted 4 minutes and 49 seconds and ended with lead singer Billy Davis yelling exhortations such “open up your heart” and “you got to feel it,” while the rest of the band sang “let the sunshine in” eleven times in three-second spurts.
In 1970, the song was nominated for two Grammy Awards: Record of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Group. It was ranked No. 73 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States from 1958 to 2018.
This song was so popular in the contentious and discordant 1960s, I believe, because it provided the hope that greater cosmic powers were strangely at work to bring peace and harmony to an America and a world defined by disorder.
This was in stark contrast to my orderly and predictable existence at the time. I was concluding my junior year at West Point, in love with my future wife, and striving to win the conference title as a member of the Army baseball team when the song hit No. 1.
Is the 5th Dimension still going strong?
At the age of 68, a member of the 5th Dimension passed away. On August 2nd, Ron Townson, a founding member of the Grammy-winning musical group the 5th Dimension, died in his Las Vegas home. After a four-year fight with kidney disease, Townson died of renal failure.
Who is in the 5th Dimension right now?
Throughout the 1970s, the lineup of the 5th Dimension changed. Townson left to establish Ron Townson and Wild Honey before reuniting with McLemore and LaRue, as well as Phyllis Battle and Greg Walker, to form 5th Dimension. Townson resigned from music in 1997 due to health issues.
Is Marilyn McCoo still Billy Davis Jr’s wife?
Billy Davis Jr., a fellow member of the 5th Dimension, is McCoo’s husband. They celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on July 26, 2019. Up, Up, and Away, the couple’s journey of love and faith, was published in 2004. They continue to perform together in various places across the United States. McCoo is a Sigma Gamma Rho sorority member. She is an emerita member of the Los Angeles Mission’s board of directors. Davis and McCoo are both born-again Christians.
Is the Fifth Dimension a tesseract?
A tesseract is essentially a four-dimensional cube. This is where L’Engle’s tesseract differs from Hinton’s as well as straight geometry. Time is the fourth dimension in A Wrinkle in Time, and a tesseract a doorway through space and time is the fifth dimension. A tesseract is a geometric shape.
What dimension does God exist in?
Originally Answered: Which dimension is God in if he exists? All possibilities are encompassed in the tenth dimension. The subatomic particles that make up our world and all other conceivable universes are created by super strings that vibrate in the tenth dimension. It is here that God dwells.