Up, up and away

Dear James,

It turns out there's a new film about the Wrecking Crew which has been doing the rounds of festivals but hasn't been released yet. (For readers who've just joined us, the Wrecking Crew were a shifting group of session musicians who contributed to several major records of the 60's and 70s, see River Deep... post below). Whilst enjoying this clip I heard a snippet of this song and did a search for it and it turns out it's by The Fifth Dimension, which is odd as I was about to post their Age of Aquarius yesterday and thought better of it.

How weird were The Fifth Dimension? Look at the bloke with the beard on the left. Surely he's in the wrong business? This single, written by Jimmy Webb of "Wichita Lineman" fame, won four Grammys. Clearly, the Grammy Awards have always been a joke, it's not just a recent phenomenon.

Then I looked at their Wikipedia page and it turns out they also recorded California Soul, a song I know from Marlene Shaw's version, and which was written by songwriting team Ashford $ Simpson, who went on to have that fine 80s hit, Solid. Beardy man looks even weirder in this video:


5th Dimension also had more success with Laura Nyro songs than Laura Nyro herself. Here's them doing Nyro's Stoned Soul Picnic. There's more. 5th Dimension started out as the Hi-Fis, who split up with half of them forming Friends of Distinction, who recorded the wonderful Jenny Wants to Know.

My other previous knowledge of The 5th Dimension was from reading that Nick Drake wanted Bryter Layter to sound like Pet Sounds, Tim Buckley's Hello and Goodbye and the 5th's The Magic Garden. I don't think I was impressed with either of the latter two. I'm still trying to work out if I like the 5th in a Bacharach kind of way, or whether they're just pure cheese.