rockdoctor
Well-Known Member
I've been stuck on an old album that I've had for years, recently re-discovered, and recently purchased a CD issue of from 2000. It's The 5th Dimension's second album The Magic Garden. I acquired the old LP from a radio station, I suppose - I don't recall buying it, and it's been sitting on my record shelf all these years. About a year or so ago (it happened here in Florida, so I know it's no longer ago than that), I stumbled upon something about the album on the web, wondered if I had it, and came across the fact that I DID have it, under it's re-issue name of The Worst That Could Happen. So I gave it a spin on the turntable and was quite taken with all of the Jim Webb tunes and the little instrumental pieces used to connect the songs. Plus I marveled at the fact that it turns out to be a concept album, with a definite story to tell. I sort of forgot about it for awhile, and recently the subject came up again, and I realized I needed and wanted an upgrade. The old record was fairly scratched in places, making for some unwanted noise, so I sought out a CD. It turns out that it's been released a few times on CD starting around 2000. Arista aquired the Buddha name and issued a remastered CD in 2000, but it went quickly out of print. Later in the 2000's, Collector's Choice got hold of a bunch of 5th Dimension titles and issued two-fers. Up, Up, and Away was paired with The Magic Garden as the two were the first two chronologically, and THAT has gone out-of-print. The Japanese have done an expensive mini-LP of the title. And now our friends at Rev-Ola have gotten the rights to it recently and have a current issue of the album available. My first impression was that I'd get the current issue from Rev-Ola, but I learned that they'd juggled the song order a little bit - and it almost made sense that they did. At the end of side one of the record, the song "Ticket To Ride", the Beatles song, was apparently a required leftover track from an older set of Soul City sessions, and needed to be placed on this second album. Since the main thrust of The Magic Garden is a song-cycle all composed by Jim Webb, a lot of Webb purists criticisms have managed to get Rev-Ola to remove "Ticket To Ride" from the main running order and tack it onto the end. I thought long and hard about it, and decided that I liked "Ticket To Ride" right where it had always been, so I sought out an older copy of the Buddha remaster from 2000. I'm more convinced than ever that "Ticket To Ride" fits the theme of the album perfectly, even if it's a bit out of the musical mold of the rest of the album. I got the CD in the mail a couple of weeks ago and have been spinning it nearly non-stop - on the computer, on my MP3 player, and in the car. I love the Jim Webb compositions and Bones Howe's arrangements and this album is just a classic in my book. Lightweight pop for sure, but a classic nonetheless. One can surely hear the genesis of Webb's follow-up masterpiece of "MacArthur Park". I always loved that one too. The Magic Garden tells the story of a guy in love with a girl ("Susan"); he worships the ground she walks on and she later gives him a bad time, leaves him, marries someone else, and he resigns himself to living a blithely happy life in the gutter ("Paper Cup"). I'm not usually one to pay much attention to lyrics, but this one's really grabbed me.Harry NP: The Magic Garden - 5th Dimension
Harry, I just saw this post and I agree that The Magic Garden is a fantastic album. Although the fans that bought Up Up and Away did not take to this, and that is a real mystery, it is my personal favorite. I always thought that Ticket to Ride was a real misfit but it was leftover from the first sessions and it fits with the theme but not so much musically. The real treasures of this album are Billy's solos on The Worst That Could Happen and Requiem820:Latham and then The Girl's Song where Marilyn and Florence truly shine. I listen to this more than any of the albums and I have all the lps from Up through Earthbound except for Reflections on Bell and Anthology on United Artists. Anthology was never in the stores here and I saw it at a used record store many years ago I did not have the cash to purchase it at the time as it was priced a bit too high for me. I have all the cd releases except for Soul and Inspiration.
Mentioned the vocoder in another thread and had to give this one a spin. Big local hit, as were many Zapp tracks ("Dance Floor," "Doo Wah Ditty," "I Can Make You Dance," "Playin' Kinda Ruff" and "More Bounce to the Ounce." Roger Troutman also had solo albums, but they sounded essentially the same (and just as good). 
