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Michael Coates
The Association actually did three concerts at PHS that day in 1966. The school was too big to fit everybody into the auditorium, so assemblies were held in three shifts. I skipped a class and went to the first and second concerts. I was already familiar with the band, because in those days they frequently played at Bob Stane's Ice House on Mentor Avenue in Pasadena. The venue was their home club. Even their fan club, the Association Admiration Aggregation, was based there.
"Along Comes Mary" was already a Top 10 hit, but "Cherish" had yet to be released to radio stations. When the band sang "Cherish" at PHS, we were getting a preview of what was soon to come. Five of the six band members wore three-piece suits that day. But guitarist Jules Alexander -- who was called Dr. Zorba by the other band members because of his resemblance to actor Sam Jaffe of "Ben Casey" fame -- wore street clothes. Somebody had stolen his suit from the band's car. At least that's how they explained his appearance to us. The band sang many of the songs from their soon-to-be-released first album, but "Windy" and "Never My Love" were not among their numbers. Those songs were still a year away.
In 1972, as a young journalist at what would become the Los Angeles Daily News, I covered the heroin-overdose death of 29-year-old bass player Brian Cole. The band was never the same after that. Members came and went and came again. With declining public interest and rising band debt, members Russ Giguere and Larry Ramos Jr. bought the rights to the band's name and toured for decades with a changing lineup. At the time of Ramos' death from a heart attack at 72 in 2014, original members Jules Alexander and Jim Yester were once again singing with Ramos and Giguere in the band. Brian Cole's son, Jordan, was also a member, playing keyboards.
In the late 1970s or early 1980, I bought at auction the gold records presented to late band manager Pat Colecchio for "Cherish" and "Never My Love." I also bought his gold record for "The Association's Greatest Hits" and the plaque commemorating the best-album Grammy nomination for "Insight Out," their third album. More than 35 years later, they are all still hanging on my office wall a few feet away as I type this.
At one point a number of years ago, I struck up an acquaintance with original band member Terry Kirkman, who wrote "Cherish" and many other of their songs. He had just been laid off from his job as a drug counselor but was overjoyed at recently meeting his daughter from a long-ago liaison with a fan. We corresponded for some time, and I once asked him what he remembered about those memorable performances at PHS. "Nothing," he said. "We just had to play everywhere to get known."
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