Added Dimension? : Music: Reunited group will bring its popular sound back to San Diego for first time in 15 years. Some new twists are hinted at.

Florence LaRue was being cagey. The reunited 5th Dimension would be making its first visit to San Diego in more than 15 years, and LaRue--one of the five original members--was determined not to divulge more than generalities about its current production. The vocal group will perform two shows Sunday night at Humphrey’s.

“I will say that, because it is a reunion, people can expect to hear a lot of their favorite 5th Dimension hits,” LaRue said last week from her office in Los Angeles. “However, one of the greatest compliments I got after a recent performance was that it wasn’t an ‘oldies’ show. People can expect good singing, good harmonies, we have wonderful musicians, and a fabulous woman conductor, Gail Deadrick.”

Uh-huh.

“See, our records always were very pop-oriented, and they didn’t reflect the versatility we displayed in our concerts. The show we do now is very current and more diverse than ever--Marilyn (McCoo) will be doing something from her new gospel album, I’ll be doing some comedy--but I don’t want to say too much, because I want our audiences to have some surprises!”

Perhaps the biggest surprise for the group’s fans is the fact that the show reunites LaRue, McCoo, Lamonte McLemore, Ron Townson and Billy Davis Jr. Together, that quintet placed 30 songs on the charts during an eight-year span beginning in 1967.

The hit list included “Up, Up and Away,” “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In,” “Stoned Soul Picnic,” “(Last Night) I Didn’t Get to Sleep at All” and “One Less Bell to Answer.”

Critics began early to make much of the group’s mixture of the sexes, and, after they covered the Mamas and the Papas’ “Go Where You Wanna Go” in 1967, some tagged the 5th Dimension as having a “California sound.” Recording songs with titles such as “California My Way” (1967) and “California Soul” (1968) made the tag stick. But LaRue feels the description is inaccurate.

“I really don’t think we had a California sound,” she said. “It’s very difficult to categorize the 5th Dimension’s material. We had five very distinct personalities and five very distinct voices--from light opera to jazz to pop to gospel. And that’s how we got our sound. Someone a long time ago coined a phrase that I think is more accurate, calling our sound ‘champagne soul.’ ”

By any name, the 5th Dimension’s music was immensely popular, especially from 1967 to 1972. Appropriately, its No. 1 remake of Laura Nyro’s “Wedding Bell Blues” was recorded in 1969, the year McCoo wed Davis and LaRue married the group’s manager, Marc Gordon. (Both couples have since divorced.) Davis and McCoo would leave the group six years later to perform as a duo. They had a major hit in 1977 with “You Don’t Have to Be a Star (To Be in My Show).”

The departure of two-fifths of the Dimension signaled the end of the hit parade for the group. The remaining members found replacements for McCoo and Davis and continued to record and tour the club circuit as the 5th Dimension. Eventually, each pursued solo projects, both in and out of music. McLemore, for one, returned to the profession he had abandoned to become a singer.

Thirty years ago, McLemore was a first baseman in the Dodgers farm system when he quit to become a fashion photographer. In 1962, he was shooting the Miss Bronze California pageant when he met McCoo, who had won the Grand Talent Award. (LaRue won the same distinction the following year.) McCoo became a model, and when McLemore came to shoot a layout for her, the two discussed their common gospel roots and decided to form a singing group.

In recent years, McLemore has rededicated himself to photography. He will have his first showing in August. The other members of the group have also kept busy. Townson is an actor who has had parts in several movies. After splitting with Davis in 1980, McCoo hosted the television show “Solid Gold” for a while. Besides working with the 5th Dimension, she now performs solo and is releasing a gospel album.

Davis, meanwhile, left show business to become a successful businessman. Having recently reactivated his music career, he, too, is putting together a solo show, as is LaRue, who will make her first nightclub appearances in Los Angeles Aug. 13 and 14.

In the 15 years since the group last performed as a unit, the 5th Dimension’s legacy of upbeat tunes and offbeat costumes has become part of the quaint tapestry of late ‘60s-early ‘70s pop. A greatest-hits package released on the Arista label contains the group’s biggest songs, but a two-record compilation released on the Rhino Records label in 1986 is a better testimony both to the quintet’s lengthy assault on the charts and to the versatility of which LaRue spoke.

Notwithstanding the continued popularity of their recordings, however, the original quintet resisted suggestions that it re-form. That is, until last year, when it received a proposal to perform a New Year’s Eve (1991) show at Trump Plaza in Atlantic City.

“Over the years, people have told us, individually, that we should get back together,” said LaRue. “The Trump offer sounded like something we’d like to do, and I think, finally, it was just the right time. When we were introduced for the first time as ‘the original 5th Dimension,’ there was a standing ovation--such an overwhelming roar of applause that almost all of us were in tears. It was fabulous.”

Following the Trump show, the group did a series of one-nighters, in Vancouver, Hershey, Pa., Chattanooga, Tenn., New York and Boise, Ida. The Humphrey’s gig is its last stop on a mini-tour of California sandwiched around a recent appearance on “The Arsenio Hall Show.”

“You know, the 5th Dimension is better than ever,” LaRue said, “because we’re doing it for no reason other than we just want to. After we’d done the current show a couple of times, I discovered that there were some very personal elements to our reunion that was making it special. For example, I realized how much I was enjoying working again with Marilyn, for whom I have tremendous respect as a performer and as a business person.”

“I also think that because I’ve grown and matured over the last 15 years, I’ve finally reached a place where I can really appreciate and enjoy what we’re doing,” she said.