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Pop R&B Singer

LaMonte McLemore, co-founder of The 5th Dimension dies at 90

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Photo Credit: Benny Clay via press release

LaMonte McLemore, a founding member of the 5th Dimension and a celebrated celebrity and sports photographer, died Tuesday morning, February 3, at his home in Las Vegas. He was 90. McLemore passed from natural causes following a stroke suffered several years ago and was surrounded by his wife of 30 years and family.

As a core voice in the 5th Dimension, McLemore helped shape a sleek, genre-blending sound that reshaped American pop and soul in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The group scored era-defining hits including “Up, Up and Away” and “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In”, earning Grammy Awards for Record of the Year in 1968 and 1970. Both recordings were later inducted into the GRAMMY Hall of Fame. The “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” medley topped the Billboard Hot 100 for six weeks in the spring of 1969 and remains one of the signature recordings of its generation. Other major hits included the Number 1″ Wedding Bell Blues”)” and the enduring “Stoned Soul Picnic,” alongside seven gold albums and six platinum singles.

Born September 17, 1935, in St. Louis, Missouri, McLemore served in the United States Navy, where he trained as an aerial photographer, launching a lifelong parallel career behind the camera. He later pursued professional baseball in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ farm system, becoming one of the first African Americans to participate, before settling in Southern California and turning fully to music and photography.

McLemore co-founded the 5th Dimension in Los Angeles alongside Billy Davis Jr., Florence LaRue, Marilyn McCoo, and Ron Townson. Known for his warm bass vocals and steady presence, he helped anchor the group’s sophisticated harmonies and modern pop sensibility. The group became fixtures on television variety shows and toured internationally, including a 1973 State Department cultural tour that brought American pop music behind the Iron Curtain.

Away from the stage, McLemore built a distinguished reputation as a photographer, capturing athletes, entertainers, and cultural figures across decades. His work appeared regularly in Jet magazine and stands as a visual chronicle of 20th-century popular culture.

In recent years, McLemore and the 5th Dimension reached new audiences through their appearance 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 lasting impact.

In 2014, McLemore co-authored the autobiography From Hobo Flats to The 5th Dimension: A Life Fulfilled in Baseball, Photography, and Music, reflecting on a life that moved fluidly between music, photography, and sports. His legacy endures through recordings that continue to resonate and images that captured history as it happened.

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R&B Singer Songwriter

Don Bryant, Memphis-Born R&B Singer and Songwriter, Dies at 83

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Photo credit: Matt White via Wikimedia

Don Bryant, the Memphis-born R&B singer and songwriter whose emotionally direct writing and gospel-honed voice helped shape the legacy of Hi Records, died on December 26, 2025. He was 83. Bryant was born on April 4, 1942, in Memphis, Tennessee.

Raised in the church, Bryant began singing gospel at an early age, a foundation that would inform the intensity and conviction of his later soul recordings. He emerged in the late 1960s as a solo artist, cutting a series of impassioned singles that blended Southern soul with spiritual urgency. Tracks such as “How Many More Years” and “There’s a Better Day Coming” earned him a devoted following, even if mainstream success remained elusive.

Bryant’s most lasting impact came as a songwriter. As a key contributor to Hi Records, he helped define the label’s understated yet emotionally potent sound. His writing credits include “I Can’t Stand the Rain,” co-written with Bernard Miller and recorded by Bryant’s wife, Ann Peebles, along with “98.6 Degrees (The Shade)” and “You’re What’s Happening (In the World Today).” Working closely with producer Willie Mitchell, Bryant’s songs became central to the Memphis soul canon.

After stepping away from the music industry for several decades to focus on family life, Bryant returned with Don’t Give Up on Love in 2017. The album was widely praised, with critics noting that his voice, though aged, carried even greater emotional depth and authority.

In his later years, Bryant was widely recognized as a revered figure in Southern soul, celebrated for songwriting that valued honesty over flash and feeling over excess. His work continues to resonate through samples, covers, and reissues, reaffirming his place in the lineage of Memphis music.

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Disco Funk Musician R&B Singer

Died On This Date (December 14, 2025) Carl Carlton / Popular ’70s R&B Singer

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Photo via Wikimedia

Carl Carlton, the soulful singer whose smooth tenor lit up radio playlists in the late 1970s and early 1980s with hits like “She’s a Bad Mama Jama (She Built, She Built),” died on September 27, 2023. He was 69.

Born on May 21, 1953, in Detroit, Carlton came of age in a city where soul music was a way of life. He began recording as a teenager and quickly showed a gift for blending streetwise swagger with polished pop instincts, a combination that made him a natural fit for the era when R&B regularly crossed over to the mainstream. After early singles in the late ’60s and early ’70s, his career found its defining moment with Carl Carlton in 1980, the album that delivered “She’s a Bad Mama Jama,” written by Johnny Gill and produced by Leon Sylvers III. The song became a massive hit, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and turning Carlton into a household name almost overnight.

But Carlton was no one-hit-wonder. Tracks like “I Wanna Be Your Main Squeeze” and “This Feeling’s Rated X-Tra” showed his range as a vocalist who could handle funk, romantic soul, and radio-friendly R&B with equal confidence. His voice had an easy warmth and a sly edge, the kind that sounded just as comfortable riding a dancefloor groove as it did delivering a slow-burn ballad.

As musical trends shifted, Carlton continued to perform and record into the 2010s, remaining a respected presence on the soul and R&B circuit. For fans, his work remains tightly linked to a moment when funk basslines, crisp production, and undeniable hooks ruled the airwaves, and when a great voice could still cut through everything else.

Early Rock Musician R&B Rock

Died On This Date (December 3, 2025) Steve Cropper / Guitar Legend

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Steve Cropper
October 21, 1941 – December 3, 2025

Photo by David Plastik. Click to purchase a print.

In a career that rewrote the very DNA of American music, Steve Cropper never raised his voice. He didn’t need to. A single clipped chord from his Telecaster said everything. The legendary Stax guitarist, songwriter, producer, and Memphis mainstay has died at 83, leaving behind a legacy that still rattles the bones of anyone who’s ever cared about groove, grit, or the gospel truth of a great song.

Cropper was the quiet architect behind the Stax sound, the one who stitched together the pulse of Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Sam & Dave, Booker T. & the M.G.’s, and a generation of records that defined soul as a living, breathing force. He co-wrote and played on “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay,” “In the Midnight Hour,” “Green Onions,” “Knock On Wood,” “Soul Man,” and so many others that the list reads like a map of American rhythm. You can follow his guitar lines the way you follow highways. They always took you somewhere.

Born in Dora, Missouri, and raised in Memphis, Cropper came of age in a segregated city that couldn’t stop dancing. He found his tribe early at Stax, first as a member of the M.G.’s and then as the right hand of every singer who walked into that converted movie theater on McLemore Avenue. He became the calm center of the storm, a player who cared more about the pocket than the spotlight. Cropper always served the song. That was the code.

His gift wasn’t flash. It was feel. A two-note lick from Cropper could carry an entire track. A simple rhythm part could change the temperature of the room. Musicians spent their careers chasing that kind of economy, but for him it was instinct. It was who he was.

Outside Memphis he found new chapters, from the Blues Brothers band to decades of session work, collaborations, and tours that introduced him to new generations of fans who couldn’t believe a legend this towering could be so approachable. Cropper carried himself with the humility of a man who understood that the music came first, always.

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Funk Musician Producer R&B

Died On This Date (November 21, 2025) Jellybean Johnson / Founding Drummer For The Time

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Jellybean Johnson
November 19, 1956 – November 21, 2025

Photo Credit: Steven R. Wolf via Wikimedia

Jellybean Johnson, born Garry George Johnson has died at the age of 69. By doing so, Minneapolis has lost one of its core architects, the drummer and guitarist whose groove helped define the city’s identity.

Johnson was a founding member of The Time and a vital part of the Flyte Tyme collective with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. His playing powered the band’s standout moments, including “The Bird,” where his blend of live drums and programmed rhythm locked in the swagger that became a Minneapolis trademark.

As a producer and songwriter, he had just as much impact. He co-produced “Black Cat” for Janet Jackson, a rare crossover that topped both the pop and rock charts. He worked closely with Alexander O’Neal, including on “Criticize,” one of the signature R&B hits of the era. In every setting he brought the same instinctive feel, a sense of what a song needed and when to push harder or lay back.

Johnson’s friends have described him as steady, humble, and fiercely loyal. He never demanded the spotlight, but his touch was everywhere. Musicians trusted him because he knew how to make a track breathe. Fans felt him even when they didn’t see his name in the credits.

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