Comment on August 19th, 2008.
I completely agree with your 5th Dimension asterisk. Severely underrated, and I don't understand why they didn't undergo a reappraisal when people finally realized that there's nothing wrong with not writing your own material (and that it's OK not to be a white man) and granted early 60's people like the girl groups some grudging respect (still not nearly enough, if you ask me).
I finally just picked up Stoned Soul Picnic yesterday, actually, at a thrift store. I haven't listened to it yet, but it does make my 5th Dimension collection complete through 1970--the first five albums.
Comment on August 19th, 2008.
I have to give Velma credit for turning me on to the 5th Dimension. I knew the singles, but the albums are deep and excellent.
Those first five albums got the nice reissue treatment from Buddha, but everything after that languishes in OOP purgatory. I've managed to dig up three of the 1970s albums, and they're still good, if not quite at the same level. Actually, 1971's Love's Lines, Angles & Rhymes probably is at the same level.
Comment on August 20th, 2008.
"If I Could Reach You" is one of the great forgotten singles of the early 1970s.
Comment on August 21st, 2008.
"If I Could Reach You" is gorgeous. And the album it comes from, Individually and Collectively, is the one 5D album of importance I have been unable to track down.
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