Dimension Album Discography
Kirshner decided to form a recording outlet for Goffin and King songs and productions. Reputedly, Goffin
and King used their teenage baby-sitter Eva Narcissus Boyd to sing "Loco-Motion," one of the all-time
great dance records. The song gave Dimension a number one hit in the summer of 1962 on its first
release [Dimension 1000]. Little Eva followed that up with "Keep Your Hands Off My Baby" in the fall of
1962 [Dimension 1003, #12].
About the same time in the summer of 1962, Carole King recorded a demo of the new
Goffin-King song, "It Might as Well Rain Until September." Kirshner took the acetate of the demo and put
it out as a single on a new label, which he called Companion [Companion 2000]. Kirshner quickly
discovered that the name was already in use, so he switched the single back to Dimension with the
same number [Dimension 2000], leaving Dimension with the odd release sequence of 1000, 2000, 1001,
etc. Carole King's demo was a hit, making #22 on the national charts. Not having an actual tape of the
song, just an acetate, they took the acetate and recorded it on tape for the master. Years later, when
Bob Hyde and Water DeVenne were looking for the master tape, they came across a small box with the
"master" tape, surface noise and all. For this reason, the song has always had surface noise when
reissued. Always a top songwriting talent, Carole King went on to much greater fame as a singer-
songwriter in the early 1970s when she recorded the multi-platinum album "Tapestry" on Ode Records.
The back up singers on "Loco-Motion" were the Cookies: Dorothy Jones, Margaret Ross and Earl-Jean
McCrea. The Cookies started out as a backup vocal trio in 1954 with Dorothy Jones, Darlene McCrea,
and Beulah Robertson. By 1956, after Margie Hendrix had replaced Robertson, the group still found
much work in the music business, especially for Atlantic. When Darlene and Margie left to join Ray
Charles' backing group the Raelettes in 1958, Darlene's younger sister Earl-Jean joined along with
Margaret Ross. It was this trio that found itself in New York working with Carole King during the early
1960s.
The Cookies had a big hit on Dimension with "Chains" at the end of 1962 [Dimension 1002, #17]. They followed that up with an even bigger hit, "Don't Say Nothin' Bad (About My Baby)" in early 1963 [Dimension 1006, #7]. McCrea, just using her first name "Earl-Jean," also recorded the original version of "I'm Into Something Good" on Colpix (another Screen Gems label) in early summer 1964 [Colpix 739, #38], well before Herman's Hermits made the song into a top-15 hit in the closing months of 1964.
Besides Little Eva and the Cookies, and the one hit by Carole King (although she was a driving force as
a songwriter), there were precious few other chart records on Dimension. One of the artists signed early
was Difosco Ervin, former lead singer of the Pastels and better known as "Big Dee Irwin." Although he
put out a number of singles on Dimension, the only top-40 record was "Swingin' on a Star" [Dimension
1010, #38], a remake of the old Bing Crosby song done as a duet with Little Eva which charted in late
spring, 1963. The Jewels, a female R&B quartet from Washington, DC, reached #64 with "Opportunity"
[Dimension 1034] in late 1964. By 1965, Dimension had issued more than 50 singles, and had maybe a
dozen chart hits. Kirshner decided to move on, selling out to Colpix.
There were two albums issued on Dimension Records. The first was by Little Eva, and the second was a fine compilation of Dimension hits with Carole King, the Cookies and Little Eva. Dimension Records continued to issue 45s into 1965, when Kirshner sold the label to Columbia Pictures. Roulette Records acquired the Dimension masters in the 1970s, and Roulette itself was sold to Rhino in the late 1980s. Rhino, in turn, was sold to Warner Bros. Records in the 1990s, so the Dimension masters are now owned by Warner Bros.
