6 The Association
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The Association is a pop music band from California in the sunshine pop 
genre. They are best known for their popularity in the 1960s, when they had 
numerous hits at or near the top of the Billboard charts. They are also 
notable for being the lead-off band at 1967's Monterey Pop Festival, 
essentially the first multi-group rock festival. They are known 
for their tight vocal harmony.

Gary Jules Alexander was in Hawaii in 1962 serving a stint in the Navy when 
he met Terry Kirkman, a visiting salesman. The two young musicians jammed 
together and promised to get together once Alexander was discharged. That 
happened a year later and the two eventually moved to Los Angeles and began 
exploring LA's early '60s music scene (Kirkman even played in groups with 
Frank Zappa for a time before Zappa went on to form The Mothers of Invention). 

Eventually, at a Monday night hootenanny at the popular LA nightclub The 
Troubadour, in 1964, an ad hoc group called The Inner Tubes was formed by 
Terry, Jules and Doug Dillard, whose rotating membership contained, at one 
time or another, Cass Elliot, David Crosby and many others who drifted in 
and out. This led, in 1965, to the forming of The Men, a 13 piece folk-rock 
band. This group had a brief spell as the house band at The Troubadour. 

After a short time, however, The Men disbanded, with six of the members 
electing to go out on their own (some of the remaining players continued on 
as Tony Mafia's Men, one of the others, Mike Whalen, joined New Christy 
Minstrels). At the suggestion of Kirkman's then-fiancée, Judy, they took the 
name The Association. 

The original lineup consisted of: 
* Gary "Jules" Alexander - vocals and lead guitar.
  (used his middle name, Gary, on the first 2 albums)
* Terry Kirkman - vocals and a variety of wind, brass and percussion.
* Brian Cole - vocals and bass.
* Russ Giguere - vocals, percussion and guitar.
* Ted Bluechel, Jr. - drums and vocals; 
* Bob Page - guitar and vocals. 
  (Page's time in the band was brief, he was soon replaced by:)
* Jim Yester - vocals, guitar, and keyboards.

The new band spent about 5 months rehearsing before they began performing 
around the Los Angeles area, most notably a regular stint at The Ice House 
in Pasadena and its sister club in Glendale. They also auditioned for record 
labels but faced resistance due to their unique sound. Eventually, the small 
Jubilee label issued a single of "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" (a song originally 
recorded by Joan Baez, later popularized by Led Zeppelin) but nothing happened. 
Finally, Valiant Records gave them a contract, with the first result being 
a version of Bob Dylan's, "One Too Many Mornings." It gained some 
local notoriety, but didn't break outside of LA.

The first national break would come with the song "Along Comes Mary" written 
by Tandyn Almer. Alexander first heard the song when he was hired to play on 
a demo version and persuaded Almer to give The Association first crack at 
it. The recording went to #7 on the Billboard charts, and led to the group's 
first album, And Then... Along Comes the Association, produced by Curt 
Boettcher. A song from the album, "Cherish," written by Kirkman, would 
become The Association's first #1 hit in September 1966.

In 1967 Jules Alexander left the band to study meditation in India, and he 
was replaced by Larry Ramos. In early 1969, Jules Alexander returned to the 
group he had helped found. With Larry Ramos staying, The Association was now 
a seven-man band (which they acknowledged by changing the title and lyric of 
"Six-Man Band" to match.) 

The first project with the seven-piece band was music for the soundtrack of 
Goodbye, Columbus, the film version of Philip Roth's best-selling novel. The 
title track, written by Yester, rose only to #80, an ominous sign in 
retrospect. John Boylan, who would become one of the most important record 
producers of the '70s and '80s, worked with the group on the soundtrack, and 
stayed on board for the next album, The Association. 

Between 1971 and 2002 there were dozens of label and line-up changes 
including the death of bassist, Brian Cole, in August of 1973, as a result 
of a worsening drug habit. But, despite lagging sales poor showings in the 
charts, the band remained a popular concert draw and they continued to tour 
with ever-changing personnel.

In September 2003, the original members were inducted into the 
Vocal Group Hall of Fame.

Currently, the band includes Russ Giguere, Larry Ramos, Jim Yester Del 
Ramos, Bruce Pictor, and most interestingly, Jordan Cole (son of Brian Cole) 
on keyboards, who joined in 1999. They still tour, playing up to 70 dates a 
year, mostly on bills with other similarly styled acts of that era, such as 
The Grass Roots, The Buckinghams, Tommy James, (once frontman for the 
Shondells), Gary Puckett, amongst others.

On June 3rd, 2008, Pat Colecchio, the group's manager from 1966-1974 and 
again in the early 80s, passed away after a long illness.

The Association's history on CD, at least in America, is virtually 
non-existent. Warner Bros., which has seen fit to do enhanced digital 
remasterings of Harpers Bizarre, the Everly Brothers, and Ry Cooder, has 
only ever issued a poorly mastered domestic CD transfer of the Association's 
greatest hits album. In Japan, however, all of their Warner Bros. albums 
(including a much-expanded version of the greatest hits collection) have 
been released in state-of-the-art high-resolution digital sound, with bonus 
tracks included, and packaging that recreates the original art and reprints 
the lyrics.