Terry Kirkman, a founding member of the folk-rock band The Association, died at 83.
His death was announced on the group’s Facebook page.
“We’re saddened to report that Terry Kirkman passed away last night, RIP Terry. He’ll continue to exist in our hearts and within the music he so brilliantly wrote. Sending hugs and a number of like to Heidi and Sasha!”
The group found popularity with songs like “Cherish,” “Windy” and “Never My Love.”
The Association was nominated for six Grammys, including three for “Cherish.”
“‘Cherish’ got here in a single fell swoop,” Kirkman said of writing the hit in a 2015 interview. “I actually channeled it. Or I used to be channeled. I actually don’t know what the source was. I’ve never understood the method nor do I feel I’ll ever understand the method.
“And there are any variety of songwriters on the market, poets and author’s writers, and artists of all types who will let you know that they’ve sat right down to do something and the following thing you realize, it’s done. And also you don’t really know where it got here from.”
In a chunk for The Huffington Post, Kirkman also wrote, “One other strange aspect of the ‘Cherish’ story — one which has particularly baffled me — was that it became such an enormous favorite for weddings. Couples by the hundreds called it ‘their song,’ despite the very fact it’s so very much about love lost, not victorious love. But who knows? Perhaps it was that stirring youth march tempo that did them in.”
He played with Frank Zappa in California within the early Sixties before Zappa formed the Moms of Invention.
Kirkman and Jules Alexander formed The Inner Tubes, which merged into The Men.
When the group disbanded, a half-dozen members, including Kirkman, formed The Association.
The group opened the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and likewise performed on a variety of TV programs including “The Ed Sullivan Show” and “The Smothers Brothers.”
Kirkman left the group in 1972, re-joined when the group reunited in 1979 after which left for good within the mid-Nineteen Eighties.
After leaving the business, the singer-songwriter became a drug counselor for artists in recovery.
Kirkman is survived by his wife Heidi, daughter Sasha, son-in-law and two grandchildren.
