THE 5TH DIMENSION: UP, UP AND AWAY (1967)
1) Up, Up And Away; 2) Another
Day, Another Heartache; 3) Which Way To Nowhere; 4) California My Way; 5) Misty
Roses; 6) Go Where You Wanna Go; 7) Never Gonna Be The Same; 8) Pattern People;
9) Rosecrans Blvd.; 10) Learn How To Fly; 11) Poor Side Of Town.
Although The 5th Dimension never had a proper
artistic agenda of their own, they weren't exactly an «artificially marketed»
group like The Monkees, either: the five members found each other in the early
Sixties and had been operating as a Motown-style vocal group some time before
they were spotted by Motown man Marc Gordon and self-made man Johnny Rivers.
They were not songwriters, and they were not musicians — just three guys and
two girls who found it inspirational to pool their vocals together in the old
barbershop tradition, but also perfectly ready to adapt to modern times and
fashions.
Having secured a managerial contract with
Gordon and a recording contract with Rivers' small-scale Soul City label, the
group's true stroke of luck was getting a very young and still largely unknown
— ʽMacArthur Parkʼ was more than a year away — Jimmy Webb to oversee the recording
sessions for their first album, including complete control of the arrangements
and about half of the songs written by himself. The result, though ridiculed by
many in the past and still ignored by many in the present, was unique: a
psychedelic sunshine pop album from a group deeply rooted in soul, gospel, and
R&B — basically, Afro-American music strained through a Mamas & Papas
filter and re-converted back to Afro-American music.
In 1967, people with good taste scoffed at this
stuff, and for a good reason: this «psychedelia-lite», totally timid and
inoffensive and acceptable for parents and grandparents and housewives and
hillbillies all over the country (they quickly became one of Ed Sullivan's
famous bands, which is way more than you could say about the Stones or the
Doors), sounded complacent, conformist, and corny even compared to the Mamas
& Papas, let alone all the «sharper» outfits out there, from Hendrix to the
Jefferson Airplane — nor did The 5th Dimension offer the loud and rowdy punch
of genuine Motown. In fact, you could have hardly committed a worse crime in
1967 than borrow the superficial trademarks of newly emerging music and water them
down to the level of «respectable family entertainment». Nevertheless, once
again, time heals all wounds, and now that the revolutionary scent of the late
Sixties has passed into the domain of ancient history, we can give the band a
fair assessment based on certain, let's say, more «permanent» values of
music-making.
As a matter of fact, Up, Up And Away, the band's debut, is a pretty good record. With a
well-polished and perfectly coordinated bunch of male and female singers; a
professional and tasteful backing of studio musicians, including many members
of The Wrecking Crew such as Hal Blaine and Larry Knechtel; a talented young
songwriter providing the bulk of the material; and a decent choice in covers
for the rest of the record — really, the only thing that one could accuse The
5th Dimension of is an overdose of happiness and an aversion to risk-taking,
and wouldn't these accusations sound sort of silly in the 21st century? Oh, and
a few of these songs suck, too, but only a few of them — and it's not as if
«filler-proof» were a defining feature of all the genuinely psychedelic
masterpieces of the epoch, either (mumble mumble mumble Grateful Dead mumble
mumble mumble...).
The band's first choice of a single wasn't
particularly auspicious: a note-for-note perfect cover of the Mamas &
Papas' ʽGo Where You Wanna Goʼ — a great song for sure, and one perfectly
adapted for the purposes of The 5th Dimension, but somehow, the combined vocal
powers of Florence LaRue and Marilyn McCoo were not enough to beat the
combination of Michelle Phillips and Mama Cass for sheer power, and the only
good that came out of this is that they actually did make a hit record out of
the song, even as it attached the stigma of «Afro-American clones of the Mamas
& Papas» to the band (not entirely unjustified). However, the second single
corrected this obvious wrong, featuring an original P. F. Sloan composition,
ʽAnother Day, Another Heartacheʼ — an equally perfect sunshine pop anthem with
a cool male/female breakdown of the vocals and a wonderfully polyphonic coda
ride (Al Casey's sitar-ish «eastern sounds» are quite gratuituously placed,
though).
Finally, Jimmy Webb himself steps in with the
title track, providing The 5th Dimension with their first and one of their best
known programmatic anthems. Reducing the escapist and psychedelic ideals of
the day to the so-innocent-I-could-just-puke allegory of riding "up, up
and away in my beautiful balloon", it creates an atmosphere of almost
Sesame Street-like cuddliness with all its strings, flutes, trumpets, and
falsettos (heck, it was so cuddly that Bing Crosby himself would agree to cover
it on his 1968 Thoroughly Modern
album)... but whenever you're in the mood for some lukewarm cuddliness with a
steady beat, few songs really beat this one for efficiency; I only wish fewer
commercials would use it for their crass purposes, though I do admit it does
sound like a ready-made commercial jingle from the start. Like that ʽI'd Like
To Teach The World To Singʼ thing for Coca-Cola, you know.
Of the other four Webb songs here, ʽPattern
Peopleʼ is a nice mash-up between a folk-rocker (verses) and doo-wop (chorus)
with another complex, multi-layered vocal harmony arrangement that rivals The
Mamas & Papas as well as The Beach Boys; ʽRosecrans Blvd.ʼ is basically a
prequel to ʽMcArthur Parkʼ, with a similar multi-part structure and a similar
sentimental message based on a toponym — only three times as short and not
nearly as pompous; and ʽWhich Way To Nowhereʼ and ʽNever Gonna Be The Sameʼ are
somewhat mediocre ballads, respectively male-led and female-led, that are
mainly recommendable for the excellent musicianship, but aren't particularly
memorable otherwise. On the other hand, they also cover two songs by the
somewhat underrated Willie Hutch — ʽCalifornia My Wayʼ is clearly inspired and
influenced by ʽCalifornia Dreamingʼ (the line "California here I
come" even has the exact same modulation on "California" as it
has in the M&P song), but is really an autonomous composition in its own
right, combining melancholia and sunshine where the M&P song was all about
melancholia; and ʽLearn How To Flyʼ (more songs about flying! more songs about
flying!) is simply infectious, catchy, fast-paced pop that is quite impossible
to condemn.
As they end the album with a respectful nod to
the man who gave them their contract, Johnny Rivers — this time, they go smart
and release a near-accappella version of ʽPoor Side Of Townʼ that allows them
to show their strongest side without sounding like superfluous clones of the
artists they are covering — I have to admit that, as lollypop-ish and
bubblegum-ish all these songs sound to a pair of ears weaned on so much
stronger stuff, almost all of these songs have a lot to offer: great singing,
strong musicianship, catchy hooks, and, yes, a jet of corny happiness that is
perfectly acceptable if it goes along with all of these things. So what if they
got themselves named after a Byrds album without any solid proof that they were
capable of going beyond the second dimension, let alone the fifth one? As long
as we do not make the mistake of ranking them as equals with the major psychedelic
artists of the time (just as we probably wouldn't want to equate The Monkees
with The Beatles, unless only as a defiant hooligan act in the face of the critical
establishment), Up, Up And Away
deserves its thumbs
up as securely as any well-meaning, well-written, well-produced
cash-in on current musical trends that compensates for lack of originality or
individual artistic message with honest skill and craft. Oh, there was plenty
of such imitative acts in 1967 that genuinely sucked — but The 5th Dimension sure
weren't one of them, not by a long shot.
Wow, wasn't expecting this. When I listened to oldies radio, they were all over the place and I have always had a certain soft spot for them (as expected for a soft soul group). But they are ultra cheesy, and I can only take so much cheese. "Stoned Soul Picnic" by Laura Nyro is probably my favorite by them, it's got a good balance of pop and soul.
ReplyDeleteOh, and just to let you know PC rules and all: The preferred term in this side of the world is "African-American Music." I don't know that I've heard "Afro-American" uttered in at least a decade. Of course, "R&B" used to be code for "Black Music" in the 80s, then it moved into "Urban Music" and now they just call is "grooves" or "jams." None of which applies the 5D, of course.
ReplyDeleteAfro-American is pretty common a term in Europe (the west for sure, east not so sure) and in French Canada, though.
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