Editing The 5th Dimension (section)

== Legacy and critical reception ==

<blockquote><p>David Brown:<br/>For a brief period in the late 1960s, the 5th Dimension fully realized the post-racial crossover success that [Motown's] Gordy had imagined for his stars, while raising the legitimate question of what it means to sound Black in music.<br />
<br />To listen to the 5th Dimension was to hear a mélange of middle-of-the road Pop, show-tunes, folk music, with flourishes of Jazz, Soul, and a tinge of Gospel. If music were to sound like America, it might sound like the 5th Dimension – at least in the 1960s.<ref name=DavidBrown/></p></blockquote>

<blockquote>Mark Anthony Neal:<br/>But in a scenario that's nearly impossible to imagine for a modern act, the 5th Dimension also became victims of their own success. In an extended ''Summer of Soul'' [film] segment, Davis and Marilyn McCoo, the group's most prominent female member, rewatch the footage with equal degrees pride and pain. "We were constantly being attacked because we weren't 'black enough,'" McCoo says. "Sometimes we were called the black group with the white sound, and we didn't like that. ... Our voices sound the way they sound. How do you color a sound?" As Davis adds, "Everyone thought we were a white act until they saw pictures." Those poignant moments recall similar put-downs that Whitney Houston endured two decades later, after she began pulling in both black and white audiences with her first two albums.<ref name= MarkAnthonyNeal/></blockquote>

<blockquote>Caroline Sullivan:<br/>Playing a show at the White House for then U.S. president [[Richard Nixon]] in 1970 only cemented the idea that they were part of the establishment, though LaRue, the only original member who still tours under the 5th Dimension name, has said they were not fans of Nixon. "It was an honor to perform for the president of the United States, [but he] wasn't necessarily the president of our choice." No matter; they couldn't undo what we would now call the reputational damage, despite the fact that one of the songs they played at the White House was "The Declaration", a powerful folk-pop appeal for racial unity.<ref name=CarolineSullivan/><br/><br/>

[The medley of "The Declaration / A Change Is Gonna Come / People Gotta Be Free" was recorded for the ''[[Portrait (The 5th Dimension album)|Portrait]]'' album. The [[United States Declaration of Independence]] as written by [[Thomas Jefferson]] is sung by the group before segueing into Sam Cooke's socially-conscious  "A Change Is Gonna Come." The musical treatment of "The Declaration" was first created for the play "Bread, Beans and Things." The recorded version by The 5th Dimension was refused play on Armed Forces radio during the Vietnam era "as they felt it depicted overthrowing the government".]<ref>{{cite book |last1=McLemore |first1=Lamonte |last2=Allan-Arno |first2=Robert |date= |title=From Hobo Flats to the 5th Dimension: A Life Fulfilled in Baseball, Photography and Music |url= |location= |publisher=The Soul of the Voice, Ltd. |page=48 |isbn=0692307362 |access-date=}}</ref></blockquote>

=== Contribution of the composers ===
The 5th Dimension recorded songs by a wide variety of artists, many of whom were well known in the music industry of the era: [[Harry Nilsson]], [[John Phillips (musician)|John Phillips]], [[Paul Anka]], [[Elton John]] and [[Bernie Taupin]], [[Neil Sedaka]], [[Paul Williams (composer)]] and [[Roger Nichols (songwriter)|Roger Nichols]], as well as [[John Lennon|Lennon]] and [[Paul McCartney|McCartney]], and [[George Harrison]] of [[The Beatles]]. They recorded a small number of  [[Burt Bacharach]] and [[Hal David]]-penned songs, most notably "One Less Bell to Answer" and "Living Together, Growing Together" (the CD rarity track, "As Long as There's an Apple Tree" was never released on album). LaMonte McLemore of The 5th Dimension contributed lyrics and melody on two recordings, "A Love Like Ours" and "The Singer".

The vocal group also recorded multiple songs by lesser known artists such as Motown's [[Willie Hutch]] (Hutchison), an American singer, songwriter and producer who supplied them with some of the more funky, soulful songs in their repertoire. Jeffrey Comanor, an American singer-songwriter and actor, provided the group with at least seven of their more memorable album tracks and single B sides. They also recorded a couple of songs by the celebrated British composer [[Tony Macaulay]], one of which, "[[(Last Night) I Didn't Get to Sleep at All]]," was a major hit.

Some of the songwriters who worked with The 5th Dimension went on to establish successful performance careers of their own, notably [[Ashford & Simpson]], who wrote the song "[[California Soul]]". The group is also notable for having more success with the songs of [[Laura Nyro]] than Nyro did herself,<ref name=":0" /> particularly with "[[Stoned Soul Picnic (song)|Stoned Soul Picnic]]", "[[Sweet Blindness]]", "[[Wedding Bell Blues]]", "[[Blowing Away|Blowin' Away]]" and "[[Save the Country]]". The same was true for [[Jimmy Webb]], an American singer-songwriter and arranger who won far more accolades supplying songs to artists like [[Johnny Rivers]], [[Glen Campbell]], [[Judy Collins]], [[Art Garfunkel]], [[Nina Simone]], [[Thelma Houston]], and even [[Frank Sinatra]] and the actor [[Richard Harris]], than he did for his own solo releases.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Webb |first1=Jimmy |url=https://www.jimmywebb.com/memoir |title=The Cake and the Rain |last2= |first2= |date= |publisher=St. Martin's Press |isbn=978-1-250-05841-6 |publication-date=2017 |page=308 |chapter=Artists Who Have Performed or Recorded Jimmy Webb Songs |access-date=}}</ref> He would become the group's most prolific contributor. Webb wrote the first significant hit for both The 5th Dimension and himself: 1967's "[[Up, Up and Away (song)|Up, Up and Away]]". The group's 1967 [[LP record|LP]], ''[[The Magic Garden]]'', features an 11 track song-cycle composed by Webb.<ref name="KenShane">{{cite web |author1=Ken Shane |date=2010-02-13 |title=Cratedigger: The 5th Dimension, 'The Magic Garden' |url=https://popdose.com/cratedigger-the-5th-dimension-the-magic-garden/ |access-date=26 February 2025 |website=Pop Dose}}</ref><ref name="SeanGaillard">{{cite web |author1=Sean Gaillard |date=2021-11-28 |title=The Concept Album: 'The Magic Garden' |url=https://www.culturesonar.com/the-concept-album-the-magic-garden/ |access-date=26 February 2025 |website=CultureSonar}}</ref>  In all, the original lineup of The 5th Dimension recorded 24 different Jimmy Webb compositions by the end of 1975, most with his instrumental arrangements.

=== Contribution of producer "Bones" Howe and session musicians ===
All but two of The 5th Dimension's original albums were produced by [[Bones Howe]], who had been a sound engineer for the likes of [[Frank Sinatra]], [[Bobby Darin]], [[Mel Torme]], [[Johnny Rivers]] and [[Phil Spector]], before producing and engineering hits for a number of young, contemporary acts, including [[The Association]], [[The Turtles]] and [[The Mamas & the Papas]]. Howe employed members of the "[[The Wrecking Crew (music)|Wrecking Crew]]" on all of The 5th Dimension recordings under his direction. (The [[The Wrecking Crew (music)|Wrecking Crew]] provided backing or replacement instrumentation for many bands recording in Los Angeles whose own musicianship skills were deemed not of a professional level by their record producer - a common practice of the era). In the case of The 5th Dimension, there were no backing musicians for the vocal group so the [[The Wrecking Crew (music)|Wrecking Crew]] became their de facto accompanists and instrumental arrangers. The contributions of the rhythm section in particular (consisting of [[Joe Osborn]] on bass, [[Hal Blaine]] on drums, and [[Larry Bunker]] on percussion) on these recordings are notable: Osborn and Blaine opting to be the rhythm section on most every 5th Dimension album and single recorded up through 1975. And their Wrecking Crew cohort, keyboardist/guitarist [[Larry Knechtel]], was a constant presence as well. Being able to rely upon the same producer and group of musicians helped to give The 5th Dimension recordings a distinct and cohesive sound from album to album. Most other purely vocal groups of the time were stuck working with whoever got assigned to individual recording sessions - and didn't have much say in it.

Vocal arrangements on The 5th Dimension albums were handled by [[Bob Alcivar]], an American music producer, arranger, composer, conductor and keyboard player.