THE ASSOCIATION the Formative Years How Did the Men Come Together ? Who WERE the Original Band Members ? Where Did Terry Kirkman and Jules Gary Alexander First Meet ?
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
ENTERAN INTRODUCTION TO AMERICA’STHE FIRST YOUNG FOLK-ROCK GROUP MARCH 2018 THE ASSOCIATION The Formative Years How Did The Men come together ? Who WERE the original band members ? Where did Terry Kirkman and Jules Gary Alexander first meet ? by Malcolm C. Searles ENTER THE YOUNG... THE CREATION OF A SOUND... ... Just The Right Sound “WE NEVER CATEGORIZED OURSELVES,” says Association co-founder Russ Giguere, “and we didn’t like to be categorized by other people. But they did and they always wil. Some actualy caled us a bubblegum band! We never did any bubblegum tunes. We did real music. But the upbeat optimism of The Association was considered too light, too airy, too feel-good.” !A mistake often made by the media, or that of the record buying public, is the awful status of categorisation, and the ill-defined placement within the refines of a certain musical genre. Trapped by the walls that surround the category, and one that often harms more than enhances the legacy of any act. Were they blues? Was he really folk? Is she really jazz? !And perhaps none can be no more discouraging a category than the sub-division of ‘bubblegum’ or the wider encapsulation of ‘sunshine pop’. How does one truly define such a term? Is it simply just a certain pop sensibility? A feeling of uplifting good cheer within the 1 craft of the song? And once one is placed mixture of rock, jazz, country and blues within the realms of said classification, that ran across the grooves of some of the how does one break out? Is one allowed to later releases $ The Association (1969), Stop break out? For some… maybe not. Yo u r M o t o r (1971), Waterbeds In Trinidad (1972) $ one can barely conceive that this !The Association, creators of some of the was the same line-up that had a#orded finest examples of 1960s cheerful, sunny their name to be placed upon the labels of Los Angeles pop music, have often such timeless classics as “Cherish”, su#ered over the years as a consequence of “Everything That Touches You” and “Time categorisation. Their 1967 entry into the For Livin’” - the latter of which many have world of said ‘sunshine pop’, the hook lines gone on record as noting rang the that introduced us into the wondrous commercial death knell for their successful world of “Windy” and, subsequently, the chart orientated inclinations. record breaking “Never My Love”, as both featured on the harmonious Bones !The banjo introduction that rang clear Howe-produced Insight Out album, have on Terry Kirkman’s “Look At Me, Look At seemingly destined the band to be forever You” (from The Association), the r’n’b roots linked with such labelling. They created that drove the Larry Ramos composition music long before these particular “It’s Gotta Be Real” (Stop Your Motor) or o#erings were committed onto tape $ and the jazz theme that created the groove on neither the chart-busting “Along Comes “Kicking The Gong Around” (Waterbeds In Mary” nor the confusing psycho-babble of Trinidad), a collaboration between Jules “Pandora’s Golden Heebie Jeebies” can be Alexander and poet Steven Carey, placed into any notable realm of grouping highlighted only too clearly the diversity of $ and, they created music long afterwards. influence and talents that the And yes, it has given them a lifespan that six/seven-man band featured amongst their has seen them through fifty turbulent ranks, and one of the inclusions on the years of touring and recording (although 1969 Association-credited Goodbye, the latter has dwindled as a collective since Columbus soundtrack album, Terry the 1990s), but the labelling has also Kirkman’s gorgeous “So Kind To Me restricted the impact that their initial (Brenda’s Theme)”, is a truly sublime recording career, seven full studio albums contribution to the band’s canon of issued between 1966 and 1972 (along with a heart-wrenching building ballads. soundtrack and a double live album), has !The simple fact that they closed their had on their true integrity. Listening to the final release of this initial period with a 2 spoke to them as individuals, was something very fresh and exciting. !Terry Kirkman, founding member of The Association, later recalled; “At this time (the early 60’s) I became very politicised and discovered there was another place for me to be in the world. I was very attracted cover to folk music and the civil rights of their folkie-friend movement. And I saw that as a calling. It John Stewart’s “Little Road And A Stone was a scene, it was a culture, and it was a To Roll” (a sad climax to bass player Brian cause, and I really wanted to be a part of Cole’s all-too short life) only goes to show that common and united voice. With folk that, despite the diverse nature of their music, I couldn’t believe what was being recorded musical travels, and the brief sung about. I couldn’t believe the submission into true commercial 60s pop, accessibility of folk songs. They made you they never ventured too far away from want to sing. The content of the songs was their true roots. Their folk roots. a big draw, talking about peace and freedom, whilst being performed in !Rising out of the early 1960s Los Angeles profoundly intimate settings. You were folk clubs and co#ee houses that were viscerally immersed in the music and you proliferating during the early years of the would walk out of the club and your decade, the founding members of The consciousness would be raised. I had never Association came together via a force of heard anything like that! What were those nature. A force that evolved from a c h o r d s ? frustrated American culture. One that was What wa s all too aware as to the synthetic that finger manufacture of commercial surf music and picking? It other Southern California idioms that wa s better were being fabricated by a mass market. than jazz The true exponents of ‘surf’, and the music, and it subsequent hot-roddin’ boom, were wa s better minimal in comparison to those who than rock ‘n’ exploited the varying genres, and to many roll…” of the youth population who hung around the Sunset Strip and the surrounding Above: An early portrait of a teenage Terry Kirkman boulevards and canyons, the draw of folk music, a !Whilst over on the east coast of the movement that country, the folk clubs were often located appealed to in darkened subterranean cellars and small them and neon buildings, overshadowed by the 3 towering tenement blocks that rose up from his military status. Both had an into the New York skyline, but over on the understanding of the localised folk scene, west coast the many clubs were spread and the two individuals were often to be across the vast golden state like the citrus found checking out the many acts groves that equally flourished in the frequenting the surrounding areas. warmer climates. And in each city located Kirkman, in partnership with a fellow in this land of eternal sunshine there was ex-student of Cha#ey College in Alto an abundance of downtown co#ee houses, Loma, Frank Zappa, had also spent many full of youthful teens, devouring books of an evening performing random examples ethnic-American folk songs, struggling of varying musical styles for whoever with the chord changes and the finger wanted to hire them, whilst also forming picking style. Pomona, Pasadena, San the short-lived band Frank Zappa’s Boogie Diego… all the way into the vast inner city Men together. Alexander meanwhile, a sprawl of Hollywood. keen guitarist, had used his experiences with his high school band, Terry & The !Terry Kirkman and Jules Gary Alexander Twisters, to gain a foothold in the had first connected during a party, held on recording studios, and then taken it one a rainy Hawaiian mountainside slope step further within the co#ee house circuit above Pearl Harbor during the fall of 1962. with his navy buddies. Kirkman, a multi-talented musician with numerous wind and reed instruments at his fingertips, and a recent recipient of an honourable discharge from the National Guard, and Alexander, still currently holding rank within the U.S. Navy and a member of a folk trio alongside two other fellow recruits, (initially ! labelled Sharon, Michael Frank Zappa’s Boogie Men business card... cal ‘em & Alex, then The !Terry: “(Frank) was really into the ethnic Greenstone Singers folk thing, and blues. We would tease and, finally, The Froggy people with bongo drums and make up Flats Ramblers), had music on the spot. I was playing clarinet, spent that e vening singing and playing bongos. We didn't talking and sharing really have a repertoire per se. Club people musical interests, would call us up and essentially want us to promising to reconnect make noise or read some poetry. They back on the mainland really didn't have any idea what they once Alexander had wanted. And they'd tell us maybe, 'how Above: Sharon, Michael & Alex also sailed away about blues? How about ethnic folk 4 music?' We created things together… also experimenting with the new folk ethnic folk, Afro-Cuban, blues, sparse jazz, music movement. A talented adaptations of Bach and other classics, etc. high school percussionist, It was just walking around being and also proficient on rent-a-guys for a new kind of guitar, he hooked up with entertainment that nobody understood, or fel low student Da ve what it was they were supposed to be Fractmen, who in turn doing…” brought in two of his college friends, Ken Ballard and Nyles !Eventually, with Alexander having Brown, to form The Cherry Hill Singers, a finished his services to the nation during popular young quartet who performed at 1963, the two reconnected again, once many of the established clubs around the Jules (going by his given second name of ever-increasing circuit, such as Upland’s Gary during the era) had randomly Meeting Place, The Ice House over in dropped into one of the burgeoning folk Pasadena, and the influential Troubadour clubs located in Upland, a few miles north Club, deep in the heart of West of his family home in Pomona.