Singer on Record-Setting Grammys Song Dies at 90: RIP to LaMonte McLemore

LaMonte McLemore, a founding member of The 5th Dimension, whose 1960s and ’70s hits earned the group six Grammy Awards, has died. He was 90.

McLemore died Tuesday of natural causes at his home in Las Vegas while surrounded by family, his representative, Jeremy Westby, said in a statement to the Associated Press. The musician had previously had a stroke.

The 5th Dimension was a pop psychedelic sensation, breaking records at the Grammy Awards with 1967’s “Up, Up and Away,” which won Record of the Year, Best Contemporary Group Performance, Best Performance by a Vocal Group, and Best Contemporary Single.

The four wins made “Up, Up and Away” the most Grammy Award-winning single song until 2025, when Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” tied it at the 67th Annual Grammy Awards. In 1969, the group won their fifth and sixth Grammy with “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In,” which also won Record of the Year after six weeks at No. 1 on the charts.

McLemore was born in St. Louis, Mo., on Sept. 17, 1935, and served in the Navy as an aerial photographer before going on to play baseball in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ farm system and settling in Southern California.

While McLemore continued to work as a photographer whose pictures of sports and celebrities appeared in popular magazines, including Jet, it was his vocals that found him the most success.

In 1963, McLemore got together with his future 5th Dimension bandmate Marilyn McCoo and three other Los Angeles-based vocalists to form a jazz ensemble called the Hi-Fi’s, who opened for Ray Charles that same year before splitting in 1964.

It was then that McLemore, McCoo and two of his childhood friends from St. Louis, Billy Davis Jr. and Ronald Towson, formed the Versatiles, bringing in schoolteacher Florence LaRue as another member. In 1965, they signed to Johnny Rivers’ Soul City Records label and changed their name to The 5th Dimension.

The group’s breakthrough moment came in 1967 with their recording of the Mamas & the Papas’ song “Go Where You Wanna Go,” and they followed that with “Up, Up and Away” that same year. In 1968, the group had a pair of hits with Laura Nyro’s “Stoned Soul Picnic” and “Sweet Blindness,” and in 1969, “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” brought them back to the Grammys for Record of the Year and Best Contemporary Vocal Performance by a Group wins.

That same year, The 5th Dimension played the Harlem Cultural Festival, dubbed “Black Woodstock,” which was chronicled in Questlove’s 2021 documentary Summer of Soul.

The 5th Dimension continued on to have hits including “One Less Bell to Answer,” “(Last Night) I Didn’t Get to Sleep at All” and “If I Could Reach You” in the 1970s before McCoo and Davis, who married in 1969, left the band to pursue their own projects.

“All of us who knew and loved him will definitely miss his energy and wonderful sense of humor,” McCoo and Davis told the Associated Press of McLemore’s death in a statement.

LaRue said in another statement that McLemore’s “cheerfulness and laughter often brought strength and refreshment to me in difficult times,” adding, “We were more like brother and sister than singing partners.”

McLemore is survived by his wife of 30 years, Mieko McLemore, as well as his daughter Ciara, son Darin, sister Joan and three grandchildren.