LaMonte McLemore, a founding member of the 5th Dimension known for his warm bass vocals, and as a talented photographer whose images graced magazines like Jet and Ebony for decades, died on Feb. 3 at his home in Las Vegas. He was 90.
McLemore died of natural causes after having a stroke, as cited in a statement by his representative, Jeremy Wesley.
The genre-bending group won a total of six Grammy Awards, including two for Record of the Year for “Up, Up and Away,” penned by Jimmy Webb in 1967, and for what became the era’s anthem song: “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In (The Flesh Failure)” in 1970 (a medley from the rock musical “Hair”). They landed 20 songs on the Top 40 Billboard Hot 100, and performed in Las Vegas with Frank Sinatra and at the White House for President Richard M. Nixon.
Other hits by the group included another number-one song, “Wedding Bell Blues,” Laura Nyro’s “Stoned Soul Picnic,” “Go Where You Wanna Go,” “One Less Bell to Answer” and “(Last Night) I Didn’t Get to Sleep at All.” Along the way, they created seven gold albums.
McLemore and the 5th Dimension returned to the spotlight in 2021, when they were featured in “Summer of Soul (… Or, When the Revolution Could Not be Televised),” Questlove’s Oscar-winning documentary about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival that was held in Marcus Garvey Park.
It was a period when the country was ablaze as flames fueled political unrest while the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements were involved in active protest. During such fiery unrest, McLemore and his fellow singers introduced a flowing harmony sound they referred to as “champagne soul.” Their California sound was just as hip as West Coast Jazz or the notification of Cool Jazz. Their sound was a fusion of jazz, pop, and soul. I liked the term “California soul.”
It was the Black Power/Civil Rights Movement, soul power, flower power, bellbottoms, and weed instigating California soul. McLemore didn’t process the raging timbre of Teddy Pendergrass or the shoutin’ hollas call-and-response of James Brown singing “I’m Black and proud, Say it loud.” He evoked a warm bass timbre, a rhythmic flow that allowed America to dance inside the revolution. The 5th Dimension offered a soothing harmony like “Going to a Stone Cold Picnic” and “Aquarius.”
“Black people, when we first started … they didn’t understand what we were doing at all,” McLemore told an interviewer in 2017. He and his fellow singers were put off. “We said, ‘How can you color a sound? This is our sound. And it’s different and we ain’t gonna change it,’” but were gratified when the mood began to shift, just as the group notched its first No. 1 hit with “Aquarius.”
Ebony magazine summed up the confusion in a 1967 cover story headlined “Fifth Dimension: White sound in a black group.”
LaMonte McLemore was born on September 17, 1935, in St. Louis, Missouri, to June and Herman J.C McLemore. He was raised mainly by his maternal grandmother, Gertrude Whitecloud Shaver. After graduation from Charles H. Sumner High School in 1952, he enlisted in the United States Navy, where he worked as an aerial photographer. He later pursued professional baseball, becoming the first Black player to try out for the St. Louis Cardinals. He moved to Los Angeles, Calif., and had a brief minor league career as a pitcher with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
In 1958, McLemore began his career as a photographer with Halmont Graphics, a company he co-founded. He became the first African American photographer hired by Harper’s Bazaar magazine and was the photographer chosen to shoot Stevie Wonder’s first album cover. He also freelanced for publications like Playboy and People.
Later he, McCoo, and two of his childhood friends from St. Louis — Billy Davis Jr. and Ronald Townson — formed a singing group called the Versatiles. They also recruited Florence LaRue, a schoolteacher McLemore met through his photography, to join them. In 1965, they signed to singer Johnny Rivers’s new label, Soul City Records, and changed their name to the 5th Dimension.
“I pulled them together as friends,” McLemore told the Stuart News of Florida in 2004. “Ron happened to sing opera, Billy sang rock-and-roll, me and Marilyn were singing jazz, and Florence was singing pop. It was just a rare mixture, but it blended.”
“LaMonte would be the first to tell you he may not have been our group’s strongest lead singer,” his former bandmates Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. said in a statement. “Yet it was LaMonte who brought us all together,” they said, adding that he also helped keep the group whole for 10 years, persuading the singers to postpone solo careers that ultimately led the original lineup to split apart in 1975.
His photos were readily accepted at Jet magazine, which at one point reached more than one million weekly print subscribers. He photographed more than 500 women for the publication’s “Beauty of the Week” feature, a reader favorite designed to showcase Black style and beauty from around the world.
“LaMonte had a good eye. He was a sure shot,” said Sylvia Flanagan, a former Jet senior editor, who worked with McLemore for 35 years.
McLemore reflected on his career when he co-authored with Robert-Allan Arno the 2014 autobiography “From Hobo Flats to The 5th Dimension: A Life Fulfilled in Baseball, Photography, and Music.”
His survivors include Mielo, his wife of 30 years; his daughter, Ciara; son, Darin; sister, Joan; and three grandchildren.