The Foote Files: Sweet Blindness By The Fifth Dimension

(CBS11) - While driving around this weekend, I was listening to SIRIUS XM 60's On 6 and heard a song that took me back nearly 50 years ago and triggered some good memories. But before that...

For those of you in the immediate DFW area, you may have noticed that AMP 103-7 (KVIL-FM) is now ALT 103-7, running close to 10,000 songs in a row without commercials and with a different format. I have been tuning in to see what sort of playlist they have. KVIL has had a number of formats in its history, with one of the biggest ones in January 1969 when former KLIF morning man Ron Chapman premiered in the morning and put the station on the map, both locally and nationally. But three months before that, KVIL was a top 40 station in the fall of 1968 with poor ratings and that had been sold to a new owner. I entered and won a contest they had to host a two-hour Sunday night show. I was only 14 years old but the radio bug had bit me good! A couple of the jocks staff who knew they were leaving the station actually were there to help me run the audio board but the final song of my show was one I heard over the weekend on 60's on 6: Sweet Blindness by The Fifth Dimension.

The Fifth Dimension was one of the most popular groups of the late 60's and early 70's, with Marilyn McCoo, Billy Davis, Jr., Florence LaRue, Lamont McLemore, and Ron Townson. McCoo and Davis are husband and wife and have been married since July 1969. The group charted 20 songs on the Billboard Top 40, including two #1 hits: "Aquarius/Let The Sun Shine In" and "Wedding Bell Blues" both from 1969. "Sweet Blindness" hit the charts in September 1969 and charted at #13 on the charts. Written by Laura Nyro, the song goes like this:

Let's go down by the grapevine
Drink my daddy's wine
Get happy
Down by the grapevine
Drink my daddy's wine
Get happy
Happy

Oh sweet blindness
A little magic
A little kindness
Oh sweet blindness
All over me
Four leaves on a clover
I'm just a bit of a shade hung over
Come on baby do a slow float
You're a good lookin' riverboat
And aint that sweet-eyed blindness good to me

Running 3:24 (which was long for Top 40 songs then but slightly short by today's hits), the song has a rhythm change, a wonderful brass section, and a Count Basie piano riff before the final brass ending. It's a really cool song.

So from 1968 and the last record I played on KVIL that year… Sweet Blindness!

Happy Thanksgiving!!