2026 marks 60 years of The 5th Dimension–and the celebration is kicking off with the first-ever box set dedicated to the legendary “champagne soul” fivesome! Second Disc Records is proud to announce the June 12 release from Cherry Red’s Lemon Recordings imprint of Let the Sunshine In: The Soul City & Bell Albums 1967-1974. This comprehensive 6CD collection brings together all of Marilyn McCoo, Billy Davis, Jr., Florence LaRue, and the late Ron Townson and LaMonte McLemore’s recordings for the Soul City, Bell, and Arista labels, plus bonus selections including the group’s…
In Memoriam: LaMonte McLemore (1935-2026)
In an interview late last year with TSD, Marilyn McCoo, Billy Davis, Jr., and Florence LaRue shared memories of their lifelong friend and co-founder of The 5th Dimension, LaMonte McLemore (1935-2026). “He loved music and he was a very accomplished photographer,” remembered Marilyn. “He knew Berry Gordy and did very well with his photography in Jet Magazine. If you ever look up Jet’s Beauty of the Week, he was always featuring the young black girls in Los Angeles. His work was good and Motown used him for some of their photography. LaMonte…
The Weekend Stream: September 7, 2024
Welcome to another edition of The Weekend Stream, The Second Disc’s review of notable catalogue titles (and some new ones, too!) making digital debuts. This week, there’s new tracks from pop royalty (and rock court jesters), plus expansions and rarities from The 5th Dimension, The Alan Parsons Project, and a very exciting treat for fans of The New Christy Minstrels! Stevie Wonder, “Can We Fix Our Nation’s Broken Heart” (Republic) (iTunes / Amazon) A gentle, unifying acoustic number from the 74-year-old Motown legend might be easy enough to dismiss as pap. But consider…
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Yes It Is: Grapefruit Collects 85 Beatles Covers on “We Can Work It Out”
Over the years, there have been countless collections of Beatles covers. Cherry Red’s Grapefruit imprint threw its hat into the ring late last year with a fulsome new 3-CD set. We Can Work It Out: Covers of The Beatles 1962-1966 concentrates only on the Fab Four’s first years, arranging its 85 songs in the order of the original Beatles song releases. Most, though not all, of the versions are contemporaneous, making this set a particularly enjoyable tour through the rapidly shifting pop music landscape. We Can Work It Out boasts artists both…
UPDATE: “Summer of Soul” Soundtrack, Out Now on CD and Digital, Coming to Expanded Vinyl in June
Last summer, as some music lovers took tentative steps in getting back to concertgoing amid the early vaccinations against COVID-19, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson gifted audiences with an incredible display of live performance some 50 years in the past. Summer of Soul is The Roots drummer’s debut documentary, concerning a little-seen arts festival in Harlem that took place before, during and after that year’s Woodstock Music & Art Fair – with some of the greatest soul, blues and jazz performers of the late ’60s gracing the stages. On January 28, Legacy Recordings made…
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Release Round-Up: Week of February 4
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! B.J. Thomas, In Remembrance: Love Songs and Lost Treasures (Real Gone Music) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Real Gone Music remembers the late, great B.J. Thomas with this new collection of rare and previously unreleased material drawn from both Thomas’ personal archives and the vaults of Reprise and Warner Bros. Records. In Remembrance: Love Songs and Lost Treasures features 18 tracks, 13 of which are making their debut here, including all five songs which B.J. recorded for the 2008 independent film Jake’s Corner, and tracks cut with producers Steve Dorff,…
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Release Round-Up: Week of January 28
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! Various Artists, Summer of Soul (…or When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised): Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Legacy) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Legacy Recordings delivers a soundtrack to Questlove’s acclaimed 2021 documentary Summer of Soul, chronicling the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival. Live recordings are featured from headliners including The 5th Dimension, Nina Simone, David Ruffin, Sly & The Family Stone, Gladys Knight & The Pips, B.B. King, The Chambers Brothers, and more. Available on CD and digital formats, with the digital edition adding one bonus cut…
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Winter of ‘Summer of Soul’: Soundtrack to Acclaimed Music Doc Coming in January
Last summer, as some music lovers took tentative steps in getting back to concertgoing amid the early vaccinations against COVID-19, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson gifted audiences with an incredible display of live performance some 50 years in the past. Summer of Soul is The Roots drummer’s debut documentary, concerning a little-seen arts festival in Harlem that took place before, during and after that year’s Woodstock Music & Art Fair – with some of the greatest soul, blues and jazz performers of the late ’60s gracing the stages. On January 28, 2022, Legacy Recordings…
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’60s ROCK, POP AND SOUL: New Treasury Collection DVD Set Offers Over 100 Favorites
Earlier this year, The Second Disc shared news of Rock, Pop and Doo Wop, a 7-DVD collection from Treasury Collection and executive producer-director TJ Lubinsky. Now, with the holidays upon us, a new set featuring dozens of classic hit-makers has just been released: ’60s Rock, Pop and Soul. This 4-DVD package has been culled from two decades of Lubinsky’s historic television concerts, with 130 hit songs from a “Who’s Who” of legendary performers including Frankie Valli (“Can’t Take My Eyes Off You”), Jackie DeShannon (“What the World Needs Now Is Love”), John…
The Monkees, Yardbirds, Andy Williams, 5th Dimension Featured On “Songs of Harry Nilsson”
Randy Newman once observed of his friend Harry Nilsson, “The records Harry made, and the first records I made, it was like The Rolling Stones never existed.” Indeed, before his famously chronicled lifestyle as a Hollywood hellraiser threatened to overshadow his reputation as a talent nonpareil (and left his once-angelic voice in tatters), Nilsson had carved out an artful niche of wit and whimsy. He expressed his musical muse in gentle psychedelia, baroque pop, folk rock, vaudeville pastiche, and bossa nova, and paid beautiful homage to his artistic inspirations including Newman and…
Happy Holidays and Release Round-Up: Weeks of December 23 and 30
Christmas is just around the corner, and here at The Second Disc, we’re hoping that you’ll join us in celebrating the spirit of the season – heading home for the holidays, spending time with cherished family and friends, enjoying bounties of food, love, and music, and reflecting on the good times you shared in 2016. Our year was, by and large, a wonderful one. We released six titles on our Second Disc Records imprint of the amazing Real Gone Music label, from a Bobby Darin anthology that began life as a Reissue…
Let The Sunshine In: Real Gone To Release 3-Disc Singles Collection from The 5th Dimension in December
While the Christmas season upon us, Real Gone Music has just announced a release which may be a perfect last-minute gift idea or stocking stuffer: The 5th Dimension’s The Complete Soul City/Bell Singles 1966-1975, coming out on December 23. The quintet of Billy Davis Jr., Florence LaRue, Marilyn McCoo, Lamonte McLemore and Ron Townson first came together as The Versatiles in late 1965 before becoming The 5th Dimension in 1966. The soul group (their sophisticated, elegant vocal sound has been described as “champagne soul”) had a string of successes first on Johnny Rivers’ Soul City label…
One Less Egg To Fry: Raven Collects Four 5th Dimension Albums On Two CDs
Earlier this year, the Raven label collected The 5th Dimension’s first four albums, all originally released on Soul City between 1967 and 1969, as a 2-CD set. Now, Raven is happily continuing the story of Marilyn McCoo, Billy Davis Jr., Florence LaRue, Lamont McLemore and Ron Townson with a second collection of four albums on two CDs. 4 Classic Albums: Portrait/Love’s Lines, Angles and Rhymes/Individually and Collectively/Living Together, Growing Together has the group’s four Bell Records studio albums from 1970-1973 which found The 5th Dimension and producer Bones Howe exploring new musical…
Release Round-Up: Week of May 26
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! We hope all of our U.S. readers enjoyed a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. And now, without further ado, onto the music! Yes, Progeny: Seven Shows from Seventy-Two (Rhino) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.) Finally, after a brief delay, Progeny is here! This whopping 14-CD box captures seven complete concerts from Yes circa 1972 – the same tour leading up to the performances preserved on Yessongs. For those who don’t need 14 discs, 2-CD and 3-LP Highlights distillations are also available (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.) !…
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Release Round-Up: Week of June 3
Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin I / Led Zeppelin II / Led Zeppelin III: Deluxe Editions (Swan Song/Atlantic) Anyone ever heard these albums? Interesting stuff. I don’t know about you, but I’d predict big things for these guys. Led Zeppelin 1CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. 1LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. 2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. 3LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. 2CD/3LP Super Deluxe: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. Led Zeppelin II 1CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. 1LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. 2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. 2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. 2CD/2LP Super Deluxe: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. Led Zeppelin III 1CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. 1LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. 2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. 2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. 2CD/2LP Super Deluxe: Amazon…
Release Round-Up: Week of May 27
Holland-Dozier-Holland: The Complete 45s Collection: Invictus/Hot Wax/Music Merchant 1969-1977 (Harmless) The H-D-H compositions/production didn’t stop after the trio left Motown; they in fact created several labels and did an awful lot of work for them, as evidenced by this massive eight-disc box set of their works for three labels through the late ’60s and ’70s. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.) KISS,
Real Gone Unearths 5th Dimension, Vanilla Fudge and More for Late April
Real Gone Music isn’t letting up, with six heavy-hitting reissues announced for an April 29 release, including compilations for Vanilla Fudge and The 5th Dimension, long-lost recordings by Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys and more! We’ve already told you about RGM’s plans to release 10 tracks from the band’s famed radio-only “Tiffany Transcriptions” – four of which won’t be available on any other release – as a Record Store Day exclusive. A two-disc, 50-track set of those recordings from 1946-1947 will be available in the label’s latest release batch. So, too,…
Review: Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, Jr., “The Two of Us” and “Marilyn & Billy”
When Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, Jr. departed The 5th Dimension following the release of 1975’s Earthbound, their commercial success as a duo was far from a sure thing. Despite being a worthy follow-up to the 5th Dimension’s magnum opus The Magic Garden and a reunion with that album’s composer-lyricist-producer Jimmy Webb, Earthbound didn’t rekindle the group’s fortunes. But McCoo and Davis knew they had one thing going for them: their union, one which is still going strong today. That unbreakable bond did, in fact, translate into a Pop and R&B No….
Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, Jr., P-Funk Offshoot Parlet and More Join Dionne Warwick on Real Gone’s July Slate
The July slate for Real Gone Music has been announced, and things are really heating up! We’ve already filled you in at length about the pair of anthologies coming your way from Dionne Warwick, We Need To Go Back: The Unissued Warner Bros. Masters and The Complete Warner Bros. Singles, two of the most ambitious releases yet from the prolific label. But that’s not all. Real Gone is completing their July 30 release schedule with a pair of long-awaited titles from Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, Jr., another pair from George Clinton’s…
Can You Surry, Can You Picnic? Ace, Legacy Celebrate the Songs of Laura Nyro
In Wendy Wasserstein’s play Third, a professor is sitting at her desk, cigarette in hand, listening to “Wedding Bell Blues.” Her student enters, and recognizes the tune: “Is that the 5th Dimension?” The professor sharply replies, “Not in my office!” Beat. “It’s Laura Nyro. She wrote it.” He replies, “Cool. Does she have anything new out?” Professor Nancy Gordon answers, “She died of ovarian cancer a few years ago,” and changes the subject. Cancer would take Wendy Wasserstein, too, like Laura Nyro a quintessential New York artist. In her mere 49 years,…
