LaMonte McLemore (September 17, 1939-February 3, 2026)Engineer/Record Producer Bones Howe and Harvey Kubernik Interview on The 5th Dimension   

LaMonte McLemore, a founding member of The 5th Dimension and a longtime celebrity and sports photographer whose images appeared in publications including Jet magazine, died Tuesday morning, Feb. 3, at his home in Las Vegas surrounded by his wife of 30 years and family. He was 90. LaMonte died from natural causes following a stroke suffered several years ago.

With The 5th Dimension, McLemore helped bring a polished, genre-blending sound to American pop and soul in the late 1960s and early 1970s, scoring era-defining hits including “Up, Up and Away” and “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In.” The group won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year twice—first for “Up, Up and Away” (1968) and again for “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In (The Flesh Failures)” (1970). Both recordings were later inducted into the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame (“Up-Up and Away,” 2003; “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In,” 2004).

The “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” medley topped the Billboard Hot 100 for six weeks in the spring of 1969, becoming one of the signature recordings of its generation. Other mega-hits included the Number 1, “Wedding Bell Blues,” and the iconic “Stoned Soul Picnic,” amid seven Gold albums and six Platinum RIAA-certified singles. In 1991, The Original 5th Dimension received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Born Sept. 17, 1935, in St. Louis, Missouri, McLemore served in the United States Navy, where he trained and worked as an aerial photographer—an early chapter in what became a lifelong parallel career behind the lens. He later pursued professional baseball in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ farm system, one of the first African Americans to participate, before settling in Southern California and turning his attention to music and photography full time.

McLemore co-founded The 5th Dimension in Los Angeles, joining Billy Davis Jr., Florence LaRue, Marilyn McCoo, and Ron Townson. Known for his warm bass vocals and easygoing presence, he helped anchor the group’s sophisticated harmonies and modern pop sensibility, which broadened the palette of soul and R&B on mainstream radio. They appeared on major television variety shows of the era and toured internationally, including a 1973 State Department cultural tour that brought American pop music behind the Iron Curtain.

Outside the recording studio, McLemore built a distinguished reputation as a photographer, with work spanning entertainment, sports, and editorial portraiture. His images captured many of the defining figures of 20th-century popular culture, and he contributed photography to Jet magazine over the course of multiple decades.

McLemore and The 5th Dimension also reached new audiences in recent years. Their musical performances were featured in Questlove’s Oscar-winning documentary ‘Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised),’ which revisited the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival and its enduring musical impact.

In 2014, he co-authored with Robert-Allan Arno the autobiography From Hobo Flats to The 5th Dimension: A Life Fulfilled in Baseball, Photography, and Music, reflecting on a career that moved effortlessly between the stage and the camera.

Statements

“All of us who knew and loved him will definitely miss his energy and wonderful sense of humor.” - Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis, Jr.

“Proverbs 17:22 states that "A joyful heart is good medicine…" Well, Lamonte really knew my prescription! His cheerfulness and laughter often brought strength and refreshment to me in difficult times. We were more like brother and sister than singing partners. I didn't realize the depth of my love for Lamonte until he was no longer here. His absence has shown me the magnitude of what he meant to me and that love will stay in my heart forever,” said Florence LaRue.

"As a childhood friend to me from St. Louis, Mo., he will certainly be missed," shared bandmate Billy Davis Jr.

"Lamonte loved music and was always so generous, making his photography studio available to us in our early years before the hits started,” said Marilyn McCoo.

Survivors

McLemore is survived by his wife, Mieko McLemore, his daughter Ciara, (adopted) son Darin, sister Joan, and three grandchildren.

Services

A memorial service and celebration of life will be announced at a later date.

For more information on The 5th Dimension, forever5thdimension.com, 5thdimensionlive.com, 

In 2008 I interviewed the legendary sound engineer and record producer who guided and produced the epic 5th Dimension recordings. He will turn age 93 this March.  

A 2023 article in Sarasota Magazine, a Florida-based publication headlined a profile on Howe, “How Bones Howe Helped Shape America’s Pop Music.”

During 2008 I interviewed Bones Howe. Portions of our conversation were published in my book Canyon of Dreams: The Magic and the Music of Laurel Canyon.

Dayton “Bones” Howe, a soft-spoken, jazz-loving, Southern gentleman, came to Los Angeles from Georgia in 1956. He quickly settled his rail-thin frame (hence, the nickname) behind the mixing console at Radio Recorders Studio, serving under principal engineer Thorne Nogar on some the young Presley’s breakthrough hits. 

Over the next decade, Howe became one of the most celebrated engineers in the music industry, working on albums by Ornette Coleman, Jack Kerouac and Lenny Bruce as well as recording a parade of Top Ten singles from Timi Yuro, The Mamas & Papas, and Johnny Rivers.

Howe then produced The Association, The Turtles, The Monkees, and The 5th Dimension. The West Coast sound was as much a product of his panoramic vision as it was the worship of cars, girls and warm summer breezes.

With his 1968 partner, television director Steve Binder, they set Elvis Presley off on a personal journey that bordered on a career resurrection.

The result was Elvis…The ’68 Comeback Special. 

In the early 1970s, Bones would engineer and co-produce Tom Waits’ Closing Time.  

Howe and The 5th Dimension are not in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That’s a Shonda.

Interview excerpts from my 2008 interview with Bones Howe.  

Johnny Rivers had discovered The 5th Dimension who were originally known as The Hi-Fi’s in 1966 to his Soul City label done with Imperial Records. Howe produced Rivers also inked Jimmy Webb to his music publishing house and produced The 5th Dimension’s “Up Up And Away,” a Webb tune that Howe engineered.

Howe took over the group’s musical activities. Howe selected material from the Webb, “Carpet Man” and “Paper Cup,” and scripture from the Laura Nyro songbook: “Wedding Bell Blues,” “Stoned Soul Picnic,” “Sweet Blindness” and even cut Nyro on an attempt on “Save The Country.” 5th Dimension also waxed the anthem, “California Soul” by the immortal Valerie Simpson and Nicholas Ashford team.

Excerpts from my 2008 interview with Bones Howe.  

“I produced ‘Windy’ by the Association and went to number one and made ‘Never My Love’ which also went to number one. Johnny Rivers called me up. I had been the engineer on the ‘Up, Up and Away’ album. He asked me if I would be interested in producing the Association. ‘Yeah!’ And he said the first thing was that I’m to do an album with Jimmy Webb called ‘The Magic Garden.’ ‘He wants to do a big orchestra.’ ‘If you’re willing to pay for it, I know what to do. We will go into the big studio at United and record the tracks there and I’ll put the voices.’

“The album really didn’t have a single in it. From one record to the next I began to find things that could get played on the radio. Jimmy wrote these beautiful harmonies. He was the hippest songwriter in town. All of his songs have major sevenths and major ninths. All those altered chords like you find in jazz. So that was what I thought was very attractive. He also wrote beautiful melodies. It was find doing those things with Jimmy. Somebody once introduced themselves to me ‘You’re Bones Howe. You work with Jimmy Webb.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘How does he sleep with all that music in his head?’

“I was actively working with music publishers. I heard Laura Nyro’s ‘Wedding Bell Blues’ on KHJ radio ‘cause Bill Drake the RKO programmer liked the record. Then I saw Laura at the Monterey festival in 1967. I thought Laura was amazing and it was almost jazz what she was doing. Laura was different. She had some L.A studio musicians with her at Monterey like Hal Bline who also worked with Johnny Rivers. I did a session with her on ‘Save The Country’ with her. Clive (Davis) called me and asked me if I would do it.’ She wanted to do it very badly and she wanted to use the West Coast rhythm section. So, Clive flew her out and we did it. She was a dear woman and I really loved her. She would play me stuff on the piano and I would just be bits and pieces of stuff and I would keep saying, ‘Finish it!’ R&B radio stations played ‘Stone Soul Picnic.’ It was a number one R&B hit. I kept mining the Nyro and Webb mines. I kept finding stuff I loved and it got easier when we got rolling on it.

“On The 5th Dimension it was Hal Blaine on everything. And Joe Osborn. I discovered Joe doing those Johnny Rivers records with Lou Adler. Mickey Jones was the drummer on the first Rivers sessions. And Joe Osborn. He played the bass the way I thought, as a jazz player, rock ‘n’ roll players should play the bass. Joe and Hal together were together and really the lock and the feel. Those guys were just amazing together. And then Dennis Budimir and Tommy Tedesco jazz guys. That’s kind of how I built a rhythm section. A lot of it was conversation. I always started my session in the room. The lead sheets would go out but I always started with the guys and stood out there with them as they ran the first tune. I hated the disembodied voice that came from the control room to the floor telling everybody what to do.

“The 5th are in New York and somebody had given them tickets to see ‘HAIR.’ They told me about an amazing song called ‘Aquarius.’ ‘We can do that song and it will be a big hit.’ I listened to the song and felt it wasn’t a whole song. I went to New York with my wife Melodie and we went to see HAIR. I’m watching this thing unfold and I realize ‘Aquarius’ is simply just like an introduction to the show. It doesn’t go anywhere. And then in a pair of shorts comes down sliding on a wire and they sing ‘The Flesh Failures.’ A downer of a song talking about civilization is going to hell. But then the chorus ‘Let the sunshine in.’ 3 bars being repeated. ‘Oh shit! That’s how we do it.’ But I couldn’t do this until I got permission from the music publisher. I went to United Artists who had the copyright. I played the two things for The 5th Dimension and then told them we will do the chorus at the end.

“With the 5th Dimension I also had Bob Alcivar, a vocal arranger on the team. We worked close together. He would help me find the keys for the singers to do the songs and coax them vocally. He found ways to help them. Bob would sit at the piano with each member and teach them their part. A huge asset. He made a tremendous contribution and I couldn’t go forward with any song until he figured out what key we would do that these guys could sing it in. That was a partnership we had with the things that we had.

“On ‘Aquarius’ during production, Bob Alcivar went, ‘There in different keys! How are we going to get these things together? ‘We’re gonna hook them together like two trains.’ We will record them separately and I will find a way to put them together with Hal Blaine on drums. I mixed it and put it together. We put strings and horns and stuff on it and put it together. It was more like building and architecture.

“When I was an engineer, I was there to serve the producer and the music. I never lost touch of that. By the time they were done I could sing along with every record I made. I suppose what I did was that I did what I was told except I found ways to do it but I thought benefited the performance of the musicians in the studio. And I made suggestions like putting the girls on one side and the guys on the other side on Mamas and Papas. That sort of stuff. ‘Let’s do it this way and see how it works.

“Those became concrete formats. And when I started working at Studio 3 at United Western, I invited that rhythm set up. Because what I found out is that if you put the guys close enough together, they’ll play better. And not only that, the sound will be better. Because the sound doesn’t have to travel as far to the other microphone. It’s all about an ensemble sound.   

“The best record made during the whole era was ‘Pet Sounds. And in the case of Brian Wilson, it was a whole room full of people playing together. Brian was a different kind of music maker. Way ahead of everybody else where he was. He was so far ahead he wasn’t in the race. Brian had the vision and brought the musicians together and write the charts. And poor Chuck Britz, the engineer, had to figure out how to get all that sound on the tracks. Chuck’s influence. Those records are amazing, including the sound.

“And I remember going in when they were recording Pet Sounds and having to wade through all of those musicians, two drummers, seven guitar players, pianos. And Bill Pittman and others filling in the spaces in between. And Chuck in that little room, and it had a lot to do with it because everyone had to be close together so there was nobody spread out and there wasn’t a time lag from one place to another. It was everybody was hearing the time at the same time. And so, getting that on the tracks and mixing them with Brian was really part of putting the paint on the canvas.

“And with Brian, like Spector, Brian liked to mix in mono. They were made to play on the radio, which was mono. And they were made to sound good on the radio, which was mono. I had to pull over on the side of the road on Barham Boulevard one night when I heard Phil’s ‘You Lost That Loving Feelin’’ for the first time. That was the first record that kind of nailed me down. ‘Oh Jesus…’

“I didn’t get to know Phillip until later ‘cause he was working at Gold Star and I was at Radio Recorders and then I went to United. I knew who he was. I met him a couple of times. And then in 1966 he called me up and was doing a Tina Turner album and wanted to do the whole orchestra live and [engineer] Larry Levine at Gold Star couldn’t do it.

“So, Larry called me and asked ‘Do we think we can do this at Studio A at United?’ ‘Absolutely. I did four or six tracks on that Ike and Tina Turner album, including ‘A Love Like Yours Don’t Come Knockin’ Everyday.’ Larry came over and clued me in on how to set up the wall of sound tape reverb echo and all that stuff. 

“I had worked with Ike and Tina at Studio B at Radio Recorders and Ike used to pay in cash. Ike had the girls and he paraded the girls. I liked Ike. He was a good guy and I had a good time working for him.

“I had done surf records with [producer]Lou Adler on Jan and Dean, and before that I recorded the Hi Lo’s with Clark Burroughs and that’s how I found him to do the Association’s’ ‘Never My Love’ and ‘Windy.’ Those are his vocal arrangements. I did record a lot of vocal groups when I was at Radio Recorders but they were more traditional vocal groups. But the Hi Lo’s. I knew them and the Four Freshman from my jazz days. So, these kind of harmonies were very much what I was into.”   

(Harvey Kubernik is the author of 20 books, including 2009’s Canyon Of Dreams: The Magic And The Music Of Laurel Canyon, 2014’s Turn Up The Radio! Rock, Pop and Roll In Los Angeles 1956-1972, 2015's Every Body Knows: Leonard Cohen, 2016's Heart of Gold Neil Young and 2017's 1967: A Complete Rock Music History of the Summer of Love.

Sterling/Barnes and Noble in 2018 published Harvey and Kenneth Kubernik’s The Story Of The Band: From Big Pink To The Last Waltz. In 2021 they wrote Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child for Sterling/Barnes and Noble. 

Otherworld Cottage Industries in 2020 published Harvey’s Docs That Rock, Music That Matters. His Screen Gems: (Pop Music Documentaries and Rock ‘n’ Roll TV Scenes) will be published in mid-February 2026 by BearManor Media.

Harvey spoke at the special hearings in 2006 initiated by the Library of Congress held in Hollywood, California, discussing archiving practices and audiotape preservation.

In 2017, he appeared at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, in its Distinguished Speakers Series and as a panelist discussing the forty-fifth anniversary of The Last Waltz at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles in 2023).The post LaMonte McLemore (September 17, 1939-February 3, 2026) first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.