The year 1970 was a great one for music. I was 12 years old then, moving from sixth grade into seventh, and I was listening to the radio a lot—WIBC-AM in Indianapolis for news, WIFE-AM for top forty music, and WNAP-FM for more album-oriented rock, but with a lot of overlap between the last two. I also spent a lot of money buying 45 RPM singles, about a buck apiece, that I played on my GE portable record player.
One of the 45s I bought back then was today’s classic song of the day, “Love or Let Me Be Lonely” by a 5th Dimension-like group called the Friends of Distinction. RCA Records released this one (with the bright orange label) in March of 1970, when I was still in sixth grade. It peaked at #6 on the Billboard Hot 100, #8 on the Cash Box Top 100, #13 on Billboard’s R&B Singles chart, and #9 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart. It was a true cross-genre hit.
“Love or Let Me Be Lonely” was written by the team of Skip Scarborough, Jerry Peters, and Anita Poree. Peters and Poree had previously written another hit for the distinctive Friends, 1968’s “Going in Circles,” which peaked at #15 on the charts.
The Friends of Distinction were four singers from Los Angeles who first got together as a group in 1968. The original Friends were Floyd Butler, Harry Elston, Jessica Cleaves, and Barbara Jean Love. Butler and Elston had been members of a similar vocal group called the Hi-Fi’s, which included future 5th Dimension singers Lamont McLemore and Marilyn McCoo.
The four Friends were discovered by Hall of Fame football player Jim Brown and signed to RCA Records, where they had a handful of hits, including “Grazing in the Grass” and “Going in Circles.” Ms. Love took maternity leave in late 1969 and was temporarily replaced by Charlene Gibson, who sang lead on “Love or Let Me Be Lonely.” That song was the group’s last big hit, although the group continued recording and touring until their breakup in 1976.
“Love or Let Me Be Lonely” has been covered by a number of other artists over the years, including Merry Clayton, Judy Stone, and Maxine Nightingale. Soft rock crooner Paul Davis, of “Cool Night” and “I Go Crazy” fame, had the biggest success with it; his somewhat laid-back cover reached #40 (#11 on the Adult Contemporary charts) in 1981.
And here’s today’s daily bonus video of the day, Charlene Gibson and the Friends of Distinction lip synching “Love or Let Me Be Lonely” on some television show in 1970. Very 5th Dimension-like, indeed.
