Billy Davis Jr. (born June 26, 1938) – I Hope We Get To Love In Time (1976)
This beautiful love song was the title track to Davis and his wife Marilyn McCoo's debut solo LP, co-written by Brian and Eddie Holland's cousin James Dean.
Watch full video on Twitter.
View most updated version of this post on Substack.
Billy Davis Jr. and his wife Marilyn McCoo are two of the original members of legendary group the 5th Dimension.
Singer/songwriter and Jet magazine photographer Lamonte McLemore put together the 5th Dimension. He originally sang with McCoo in an earlier group, the Hi-Fi’s, which also featured future Friends Of Distinction member Harry Elston. After the Hi-Fi’s disbanded in 1965, McLemore assembled a new group based around himself and McCoo. He invited two of his old friends from St. Louis to join, baritone vocalist Davis and tenor singer Ronald Townson.
The group is best remembered for their #1 mega-hit “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” (1969) which won two Grammys, for Record of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Group. They had already won an an astounding five Grammys in 1967 with “Up, Up And Away,” including Record of the Year.
But they had many other hits and excellent deep cuts on the dozen albums they released from 1967-79. For their fifth album Portrait (1970), McLemore co-wrote the upbeat jam “A Love Like Ours.” The superb title track to their sixth LP Love's Lines, Angles and Rhymes (1971) had originally been recorded by Diana Ross the year before. It featured McCoo on lead vocals, and went to #28 R&B and #19 on the Billboard Hot 100. Their twelfth LP Earthbound (1975), the last album they put out before Davis and McCoo left to go solo, contained the very funky anthem “Don’t Stop For Nothing.”
For their solo debut LP, I Hope We Get to Love in Time, released on ABC Records in 1976, they gave us the superb slow jam title track, surely in contention for one of the most beautiful love songs ever recorded.
It was co-written by songwriters John Glover and James Dean, Brian and Eddie Holland's cousin who often teamed with William Weatherspoon and co-wrote Motown hits like Jimmy Ruffin’s “What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted” (1966).
The album’s followup single “You Don't Have to Be a Star (To Be in My Show” was a smash hit, going to #1 on the Hot 100.
Happy 85th Birthday to the great Billy Davis Jr.
#soul #5thDimension #BillyDavisJr.