The Age of Aquarius

Performer: The 5th Dimension
Artist: Marilyn McCoo; Billy Davis, Jr.
Engineer: Bones Howe...
Distributor: Sony Music Distribution (

Notes: The Fifth Dimension: Marilyn McCoo, Billy Davis, Jr., Florence LaRue, Lamonte McLemore, Ron Townson (vocals). Additional personnel: Tommy Tedesco, Dennis Budimir, Mike Deasy, Bill Fulton (guitar); The Bill Holman Strings & Brass (strings, brass); Larry Knetchel, Jimmy Rowles, Pete Jolly (keyboards); Joe Osborne (bass); Hal Blaine (drums, percussion); Larry Bunker (congas, mallets, percussion); Milt Holland (percussion). Recorded at Wally Heider Studios & Studio 3 Inc., Hollywood, California; United Recording, Las Vegas, Nevada. Includes liner notes by Mike Ragogna. Producer: Bones Howe. Reissue producer: Rob Santos. Digitally remastered by Elliott Federman (2000, SAJE Sound, New York, New York). The 5th Dimension's fourth album almost plays like a Greatest Hits collection. Beside the title smash from the Broadway musical HAIR, hits from THE AGE OF AQUARIUS include two obligatory Laura Nyro songs: the infectious "Blowing Away," and the perhaps deliberately ironic (given its counterculture context) "Wedding Bell Blues," plus the almost Nyro-worthy "Working On a Groovy Thing," by Neil Sedaka. The rest of the album is the group's usual high gloss L.A. pop/rock. Highlights include a cover of the Everly Brothers' "Let It Be Me" that achieves a near-Phil Spector-like grandeur, and a re-working of Mary Hopkin's "Those Were the Days." The latter adds a soul feel to the vaguely eastern European strains of the original; it's like hearing an R&B band at a bar mitzvah--in a good way. There's also a great Latin rocker, "Dontcha Hear Me Callin' to Ya," which suggests that the group was aware of Santana, and a cover of Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love" that is truly, though perhaps unintentionally, psychedelic.

With their heavenly, lushly produced arrangements of songs by contemporaries such as Jimmy Webb and Laura Nyro, the 5th Dimension ruled the pop-radio roost in the late 1960s. The vocal-harmony group's sweet sound personified the sunnier, more optimistic aspects of the era, as expressed in such huge hits as Webb's "Up, Up and Away" and the theme from HAIR, "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In." After the group's dissolution, members Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, Jr. went on to further success in the '70s, both solo and as a duo.

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