Terry Kirkman
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Terry Kirkman, (born December 12, 1939) in Salina, Kansas, USA, was a multi talented musician who wrote the hit song Cherish which for many is the classic love song.
He left the band "Men" in the 1960s to become a founding member and sometime leader of the musical group "The Association".
Kirkman co-wrote some material with fellow group member and friend, Jules Alexander. His Requiem For The Masses, a song originally written about a tragic death in Vietnam, featured six-voice harmony which had the power of a much larger group.
The music fell between that of the Beach Boys and the Beatles in both style and popularity.
The first "The Association" hit, Along Comes Mary, possessed excellent jazz type changes blended with harmony and L.A. folk-rock rhythm section complete with a Fender tele and the engineer who had previously recorded The Monster Mash, Gary Paxton. This song was not written by Kirkman but by artist Tandyn Almer whose identity reportedly was not Beach Boys guru Brian Wilson. Other hits sung by "The Association" included Never My Love and Windy, both being commercial successes.
A very active touring group, "The Association" would do 250 one-nighters in a year. It was reported that a line of cars two miles long formed near Chicago's Ravinia venue when they played a concert about 1970.
Early in his musical career, Kirkman partnered Frank Zappa.Their music shared a complexity rare in rock, something quite difficult to perform .
Terry Kirkman was vice president of an L.A. organization that helps musicians with substance abuse habits, as of 2003,