California - The 5th Dimension had been performing at the Americana hotel. After going out shopping, Billy Davis Jr. realized he had lost his wallet in the cab. An hour later he gets a call asking if he was Billy Davis Jr. He said yes. The person on the other end of the phone said "I've got your wallet. Come on over and pick it up."
So Billy went over and picked up his wallet. Billy thanked the stranger and invited him to see their show at the Americana.
After the show, the stranger went backstage and thanked Billy for inviting him to see the show. The stranger said "You were so nice for inviting me to see your show, I'd like you to see my show". The stranger turned out to be Ed Gifford, a producer for the musical "Hair". He got the group tickets to his perpetually sold out show.
The group went to see the show and afterward they knew that they just had to do the song "Age of Aquarius". But Age of Aquarius had already been recorded by 3 other groups and had never been a hit. But they told their engineer/producer Bones Howe that they wanted to record it.
Bones saw the show and realized that Age of Aquarius wasn't a complete song. It was just the song that introduces the rest of the show. But there was a small segment at the end of the show that he liked with the words "Let the sunshine in". That small segment had a gospel feel to it. Billy had a gospel background. So, Bones added that small segment to the end giving it a little bit of a gospel feel. When the group went into the studio to record the song, Bones told Billy "Take it to church."
And the rest is history.
As told by Billy Davis Jr and Marilyn McCoo - interviewed for the movie "The Wrecking Crew" . (The movie is about all the extraordinary studio musicians who played on most of the hit songs of Rock and Roll)
= new reply since forum marked as read
